April 1st: Fools' Day

Yes, it was hilarious when Google spoofed the Web, saying it had begun a service of printing and manually delivering boxes of email to Gmail users. I laughed. You laughed.

But now that the year is 2010, can we finally acknowledge that the world is so abounding with fools, so saturated, lopsided and poisoned with fools, that we should devote one day out of the year to recognize them? Name them by name. Throw rotten vegetables at their cars and insult them to their faces.

Starting this week, we the good citizens who suffer with fools all the year round, should give our usual courtesy a break, our customary tact and aplomb a day off. And just as the rules of our social compact are relaxed on Hallowe'en, and the grinding gears of commerce take sort of a reprieve on Christmas, so too should all repercussions of facing our fools be suspended -- just for the day.

Imagine the catharsis. All those pent-up employees who -- one day a year -- could tell their hated bosses to go fuck themselves; tell that blow-hard neighbor he has the worldview of a defective vole. That we tell our clergy and politicians and puffed-up businessmen that we think they are knaves, shysters and miscreants.

I vote that we turn Fools' Day into a day of leveling -- bringing the lofty low, make the prestigious preposterous, the bellowing, insufferable daily asshole who makes every moment in their presence throb like a tension headache, be verbally tarred and feathered.

Then, on April 2, all would return to normal.

The social Scrooges would soon forget the events of the first, and return to their boorishness and buffoonery. But there may be a few souls to be saved. A few might awake from their stupors, mend their ways and rejoin the fold.

Playing practical jokes on the stiffs in our offices, homes and gathering places may be fun in the short term, but I think it's time to turn April Fool's Day over to those who cannot suffer fools.