The first day of April is the best day of the year for those mischievous pranksters who get a kick out of torturing their friends. After all, who doesn’t love an excuse to laugh at people after setting them up while getting away with it in the name of a holiday? But all laughter aside, not everyone finds it a great day, for it can be a nightmare to those unsuspecting victims who are naive enough to believe that gullible is written on the ceiling. However, there is a fine line between fun and games and just being flat out mean. Covering your friend’s car in sticky notes is funny, while frantically calling your sister at 5 a.m. from a foreign country begging them to bail you out of jail is not. What better place than a college campus to find the best April Fools’ stories? Before planning out your jokes, read these stories to find out how to pull off the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

Two years ago, Matt Bloom, junior justice studies major, was living in Prentice Hall. When his friends asked him to go play baseball outside, he went down the hall to get a ball from one of his hall mates. He left his door bolted, but while he was gone, someone slipped in his room and hid under his bed while Bloom was grabbing his mitt. “When I came back later, my food, drinks and mattress were gone,” he said. The food was in another room, the drinks were scattered about and the mattress was on another floor. It might seem cruel to send someone searching for their mattress, but it was all in good fun, especially since Bloom got his friends back by tying a few of their doors together.

Joey Sciuva, junior business management major, has an epic April Fools’ tale that dates back to his days at Garfield Heights High School. He was always trying to one up his wrestling coach and gym teacher with pranks. For instance, if his coach would hide his backpack on top of the basketball hoop, he retaliated by hiding his coach’s truck in the bus garage. In the days leading up to April Fools’ Day, Sciuva and a few friends drove around finding furniture, TVs and tables. “You name it, we got it,” Sciuva said. “We had a big screen TV, a couch, a recliner, a huge throw rug, end tables, a dining room table and complete set of chairs to go around it, full place settings on the table and to top it off, we had a toilet.” They used a friend’s trailer, packed up the goods and headed out at 4:30 a.m. to set up the “masterpiece” on his coach’s front lawn. “It was perfect. It looked like it could have fit into someone’s home,” Sciuva said. Around 7 in the morning, he got a call from his coach saying, “I’m going to get you Sciuva.” After a day of headlocks, the coach admitted it was a great prank and that he even kept it up in his yard for a few days. The prank war was finished because, as Sciuva said, “I don’t think that could be topped.”

The Bad

Nothing is worse than finding out you have a test the day before it happens. Scott Brandenstein, sophomore entrepreneurship major, called a friend that was in one of his classes the night before April Fools’ Day one year and casually mentioned that he was studying for the test tomorrow. The friend freaked out and stayed up studying all night for their “test.” When he saw him the next day, his friend looked exhausted. “I didn’t feel bad though, he should have seen it coming,” said Brandenstein.

The Ugly

Some tricks aren’t mean; they aren’t nice; they’re just…dirty. Teejay Avans, sophomore physics major, thought it would be funny to put half a bottle of baby powder in his cousin’s hairdryer. He said it was hilarious to see her panic, but she had to deal with the baby powder for an hour before it was all gone. He also did the classic trick of placing plastic wrap under his friend’s toilet seat then putting the seat down, creating an invisible barrier with funny but ugly consequences. The details will be spared, but imagine how messy that could get! As for something he wants to try this year, it seems to be a lot easier and more sanitary, while still being a good joke. “I want to put food dye in someone’s hand soap. I bet that would be a really messy situation,” he said. To the friends of Avans — you’ve been warned!

Contact Natalie Moses at [email protected].