When I worked as a scout for Propeller, I dreaded April first. It was already hard enough to find interesting, quality news stories, and having an entire day where I couldn't trust anything I read was just annoying. However, I've always enjoyed creative and humorous things that are obviously fake, like Think Geek's April first products. This year, Reddit's redigg joke was pretty good, and the New Fark Experience was fucking inspired, but I will remember 2009 as the year my son Nolan pulled the perfect prank on me.

The night before, while Nolan and I watched the Kings play like they couldn't wait to get to the golf course, and the people who paid to watch them at Staples center didn't really need to get their money's worth, he grabbed my cell phone off the coffee table.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Looking at your pictures.”

“Oh. Okay. Just don't mess with any of my settings or anything, okay?”

“I won't.”

He pressed buttons and played some of my ringtones for a few minutes, before putting my phone back where he found it. We watched the Kings do a fantastic job killing their own two man advantage, while leaving their goalie out to dry when they were shorthanded. They went on to lose the game by a goal.

The following morning, I saw an icon on my phone's screen that I hadn't noticed before.

“Ah, I bet Nolan inadvertently messed something up.”

It looked like a little calendar, so I flipped over to the calendar screen, which had an entry on April first that said “April Fools!”

I thought it was really clever and silly that he put something on my phone like that, knowing that I'd go looking for it when I saw the icon. I sent him a text message and congratulated him on the good prank.

“Did u delete it?” He sent back.

“No, it makes me smile whenever I look at it, so I left it.” I replied.

“Oh. Good. Love u.”

“Love you too.”

About five minutes later, my phone buzzed on my desk, the screen lit up, and it blasted out “Never Gonna Give You Up.” I looked at it, and saw that it had been set as an alarm to go off on April first, displaying the message I'd seen earlier.

I texted Nolan, “OMG YOU RICKROLLED ME! BEST APRIL FOOLS EVER!”

He texted back, “HAHAHA YES!”

It was a great prank, but I'll remember it forever because it was also an unexpected gift. He put some thought and effort into doing something funny, that he knew I'd appreciate, but – even better – without even meaning to, Nolan showed me that he's inherited my sense of humor, and that means the world to me.

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