Gesundheit

God bless you.  Bless you.  Enough already.  In my household, we say it once somewhere around early April and it covers you until late October or early November.  Yes, it is that time again.  Every one of my clones, or what you would call children, have the puffy eyes, running noses and spasmodic sneezing fits of seasonal allergies.  My wife, brilliant biologist and baby maker that she is, failed in her attempts of ridding the clones of that pesky gene.  It seems to have carried through to all of the G2s (that’s lab speak for Second Generation or so I am told). 

Our 7 YO, who has proven much less susceptible to allergic reactions, started sneezing and rubbing his eyes the other day.  Today in church, our 5 YO started bawling because his eyes hurt so much.  Even my little baby girl, who is a few days short of being 10 months old, has had her share of snot and watery eyes over the past few days. 

Every day, starting as the first buds appear on the trees and lasting until the last leaves have fallen, is a constant battle against pollen, mold, mildew, hay, etc.  My kids seem to only be effected during the early spring season when pollen counts are the highest, but occasionally over the summer, you can hear their stuffy-nosed snores in the middle of the night.

My condition is worse.  Most days are just sneezing and running nose until about noon, when my current medication of choice kicks in.  Followed by the inability to breath through my nose around 11 or 12 at night.  But every so often I get a crippling attack where the sinus headache and constant sneezing just stops me in my tracks and forces me to a subterranean layer of cool darkness.  I will lay flat on the sofa in the basement with the lights out and a ready supply of sugar and caffeine near by.  If I incline my head just a bit, the snot starts to flow.  During these attacks, I become ravenously hungry and will eat anything in my path, but I tend to gravitate towards sugar, carbs and caffeine.  I will devour an entire sleeve of crackers or chocolate or candy and down as much Coke and lemonade as possible and then still be hungry for more.  

I have tried so many different treatments over the years, but none seem to be effective.  I have been tested, shot full of 126 different allergens and concentrations in one test.  My arms looked like those old candy dots that used to come in pastel colors and were deposited in rows of tiny sugary turds on paper.  I got a shot once a week for 4-5 years, finally ending it while I was in college because it never seemed to do anything except give me a knot in my upper arm for a few days.  I have taken Benadryl, Claritin, Allegra, Clarinex, Nasacort, you name it, I have taken it.  The most interesting treatment has to have been the Neti Pot, or as I like to think of it, drowning on salt water while you perform a nasal douche.  It worked once and every subsequent time, just made everything worse.

Zyrtec is my current daily fix, 1) because it seems to be effective in calming my day to day symptoms and 2) because I can buy it in bottles of 300 from BJs.  BJs is also where I buy my tissues, in packs of eight boxes, each box containing 300 2-ply unscented, un-lotioned tissues.  On a bad day, I will blow through (pun intended) almost an entire box.

Attacks always seems to happen at the worse possible moment.  I thought they were going to kick me out of the church at my daughter’s baptism because I looked like I was infected with Ebola and high at the same time.  I look like a zombie in the last family portrait we had taken.  I will save my wisdom teeth extraction story for another day.

In 30+ years of dealing with this, I have failed to come up with any benefit of this condition.  The one slightly cool thing I have learned  is how to sleep with my eyes open.  Yes it is weird, but it is cool when you get the chance to freak someone out with it.  When it hurts to close your eyes, sleeping with your eyes open affords you some much needed rest.  The trick is to start in a dark room, close your eyes half-way,  blur your vision, and make sure you are not looking at anything that might shed light, i.e. a digital clock, window, DVD, etc. (ha ha – I shocked myself by writing VCR first and then realized we haven’t had a working VCR in the house in at least 7 years).

I think I may have found something today that may change my entire life.  It is not a new medication or treatment, it may be my true calling in life.  I found out (while trying to find the proper spelling of Gesundheit.  Yes, 2 years of German and I don’t know how to spell it.) there are people in this world that have a sneeze fetish.  I could be a God to these people.  They could worship me as I drive them to ecstasy with every boisterous blast from my nose.  They would build temples of hay and straw in my honor and lay bouquets of ragweed and goldenrod at my feet and sacrifice dust mites in my name.  The most pious would wear Tommy Hilfiger cologne, burn Yankee candles, and mow their grass on my Sabbath.  I could bestow upon my loyal subjects sodden tissues as tokens of godly appreciation.  I could become the incarnation of Arkleseizure.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days, I may be heralding my existence to my new followers or I may be recovering from trying to shove a burning hot poker up my nose in an attempt to cauterize my sinuses. 

I bless you.

Conjoined

I have a conjoined twin.  I know that is somewhat of a shocking revelation, but it is true.  He is short, roughly one half of my height, covered in golden-red hair and his breath smells like rotten fish.  We are conjoined at an odd location, his head is joined with my butt. 

Yes, I am talking about my 11 year old Golden Retriever, Cody.  Our attachment is symbiotic, bordering on parasitic.  He gets to be petted whenever he wants and constant companionship and I get stress relief, a life long friend and dog hair everywhere. 

He has always been “my” dog, he is part of the family and loves everyone in the house, but he is my dog all the same since the first day he came through the door.  We adopted him a few years ago from a Golden Retriever rescue 5 months after our previous Golden passed away.  Cody was brought to our house, so we could check him out and so that he could check us out.  If everything worked out, we could “foster” him for two weeks before deciding if we would like to keep him.  When he first arrived, he and I sat on the floor in the kitchen together and he fell asleep in my lap as I petted his ears and head.  I knew then and there that he would not need to find another home, because he already had one with us.

Cody was given up for adoption because he likes has an extreme need is obsessed with people needs to be around people.  His previous “owners” (I will refer to them as “owners” and I have omitted many other names and descriptions to keep this as PG-13 as possible, but please feel free to insert whatever word you have for heartless bastards you may have) forced him and his brother to live outside for 6 years before finally giving him up for adoption.  The “owners” ran a business from their home and the dogs would smother their clients when they came over.  Goldens love people, it is a fact, maybe the “owners” should have thought about that or made better plans before they got them.  Cody’s brother was given up for adoption first and then a few months later, they gave Cody up.  In the end, they did the right thing, but that still doesn’t make up for 6 years.

As I have said previously, there are people that like dogs and those that do not.  I have always had a sort of animal magnetism.  Dogs seem to be attracted to me.  It is probably because I am receptive to them.  I talk to them, I pet them, I get down on the floor and play with them.  I don’t carry food or treats in my pockets, although based on my eating habits, I can see how you might assume that I would. 

Female dogs are a different story.  I don’t really know how to explain it, but every time I am near a female dog, they pee on the floor.  Sammy, Zoe, Reese, they are only a few of the bitches that wet themselves when I approach.  My effect on members of my own species is not so profound.

The bond between Cody and I steadily increased when I began working from home a few years ago.  At first, he would spend his days like he normally would, sleeping in the family room on the sofa.  But after a few months, he would hang out closer and closer to me, until finally we are the point now where he is figuratively/almost literally attached to my ass.

While I am at my desk working (most days I can’t even move my chair because some part of his body is blocking the wheels, the arm of my chair is at the bottom of the picture):

From Cody

While I am making dinner (picture taken from the kitchen counter him directly behind me, the OD Green thing at the bottom is my leg):

From Cody

While I am washing the dishes (I had to make him lay down away from the cabinets so I could actually move around):

From Cody

When I come inside and he is still outside (Cody can open the screen door by himself, but I have yet to capture this with camera or video):

From Cody

When I had to sleep in my 5 YO’s room last night (taken from the bed in the dark):

From Cody

When I am laying on the sofa (this makes power napping extremely difficult, the grey thing at the bottom of the pic is my chest):

From Cody

From Cody

Cody’s face is terribly bleached white from the sun and stress of having to live outside for 6 years.  His teeth are very worn down from having only sticks to chew on and play with when he was with his former “owners”.  It took about 6 months to finally get him to stop trying to pick up and play with every stick he came across.

I would not change him or his attachment to me.  I complain and curse when I trip over him or can’t get past him coming through a door or walking on the stairs, but we love him and he loves us.  And that is all that matters.

Note:  Cody frequently has very active and vocal “dreams”.  I have not been able to capture a clear video with good audio of one of them without waking him up.  I will post it as soon as I can get one.

Christine?

My wife and I were talking about the current repairs needed to the truck and she mentioned that she thinks it might be trying to kill me.  The more I think about it, the more I believe it is true. 

To make this less confusing and to not infringe on Stephen King’s work, let’s call the truck Lucille.  “Anything so innocent and built like that just gotta be named Lucille.”

Lucille has on two separate occasions had a failure to major components while I was driving it.  The first incident happened in December.  I lost steering while on a busy highway coming home from a Christmas party.  I was driving alone, I had just dropped a friend off at his car.  I ended up driving about 10 miles with no power steering. 

The second incident was on Easter Sunday.  I explained that in a previous post.  According to the mechanic, the steel brake line leading to the left rear wheel burst and froze the brake cylinders in place, making it impossible for the brake to release.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I can recognize the facts when I see them and this situation seems to be filled with some eerie similarities.

Christine vs. Lucille:

• Christine was a Plymouth Fury, Lucille is a Dodge Dakota. Both Chrysler products.
• Christine was a 1958, Lucille is a 1998.
• Christine was red and white, Lucille is red and silver.
• Christine could have had 5.9L V8 (the model also available with a 5.2L and 5.7L), Lucille has a 5.9L V8.
• Christine’s story took place in Monroeville, PA (around Pittsburgh).  Lucille came from PA too (around Philadelphia).
• Both had crazy previous owners (just kidding, Bob, I don’t think you are crazy).
• Christine’s previous owner’s initials were R.D.L. (Roland D. LeBey), Lucille’s previous owner’s initials are R.D.L.
• Christine’s new owner was Arnie, Lucille’s new owner is Henry.
• Christine was purchased for $250, Lucille was free (tax, title, tags, inspection, steering repairs and brake repairs brings my total cost to roughly $2,500).
• Arnie’s girlfriend, Leigh, almost choked to death on a hamburger while sitting in Christine.  I burnt the roof of my mouth on a French fry while sitting in Lucille.
• Arnie hurt his back pushing Christine back to the garage for repairs.  My back is sore because I sit in front of a computer for 12+ hours a day.
• A month before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.  A month before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.

The above facts are all true, I swear I did not make any of it up.  Actually, I am not sure about the Kennedy/Lincoln thing.  I can’t confirm that Lincoln was ever in Monroe, Maryland.

The truck is home again from the mechanic, waiting patiently in the driveway.  The front grill glints like a menacing smile in the morning sun.  I have survived so far.  I can only imagine what Lucille has in store for me next.

Lost: Happily Ever After

I started writing this post several times and each time I ended up scraping the draft and starting all over.  I really wanted to write about the theories of quantum mechanics and how I think they relate to Lost.  Each time I tried, the post read more like a physics lecture than my commentary on a TV show.  After all of the writes and re-writes, the point I wanted to get across kept getting buried in theories and thought experiments.  So in an effort to not bore you with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Schrodinger’s Cat, I will put some references at the bottom of the post if you would like to read more about it and carry on with just some commentary and very little physics.

First things first.  Did you see the kick-ass painting of the scales in Widmore’s office?  I don’t think I ever noticed that painting in there before.

Now back to the theories.  I believe tonight’s episode was very similar to the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics.  There exists two concurrent timelines, the LA-verse and the Island-verse, one where the bomb exploded and destroyed the Swan Station and one where the bomb didn’t explode and Oceanic 815 crashed on the island.  Those two timelines can exist simultaneously, but once one is observed, they begin to collapse into a single timeline or one is forced to cease existance.

We learned why Desmond is so special.  Widmore thinks that Desmond’s ability to withstand huge amounts of electromagnetic energy (which I think also correlates to his ability to time travel) can do something to save the island.  The experiment that Charles and his team perform on Desmond causes him to “split” again, but this time it is not into his historic timeline, but into the alternate timeline.  He was able to witness himself living a completely different life in the LA-verse. 

Now that each version of reality has witnessed the other, at least through Desmond’s, Charlie’s and Daniel’s eyes, the wave function is beginning to collapse.  And in a Highlander-like fashion, there can be only one.  It seems that love, or having someone be a constant, is going to be the deciding factor.  Desmond’s Penny, Charlie’s Claire and Daniel’s Charlotte have triggered the peeks into the other lives that they could have all lead.

I have always thought that the LA-verse was flat and bland, but I didn’t realize until last night that the LA-verse seems to be missing something fundamental.  I believe that that something might be love or passion, the same spectacular love that Charlie witnessed in his near death experience and drove him to prove it to Desmond.  Could the destruction of the island have removed something fundamental from the world?  Or did the destruction of the island tip the balance of the scales in the wrong direction?

More information on Quantum Mechanics:

• Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
• Schrodinger’s Cat
• Wave-particle Duality
• Slipknot’s Duality
• Quantum Mind-Body Problem

Bravery

Our Easter Sunday had another incident that I did not mention in my previous post because I felt it deserved to stand alone.  I mentioned before that our yard took a beating over the winter and that a large portion of the split rail fence needed to be repaired.  There is a section next to one of the gates that collapsed completely, one of the posts sheared off at ground level, causing the two rails to become dislodged and fall over.  This is a section that all of the neighborhood kids climb over since they don’t seem to be able to use the gate that is five feet away and that is usually open anyway.

On Saturday, I reset the post and the rails so that the dog wouldn’t attempt to jump over it and go roaming around the neighborhood in the search for food or someone to pet him.  It wasn’t stable at all, but I hoped it would stay that way for a little while until I could replace the post and rails.  I contemplated hanging a sign that said, “Please use the gate” or “Use the gate or suffer the penalty of a slow, painful death in the belly of the Sarlacc.”  I figured, at the time, that if they couldn’t operate a gate, they probably wouldn’t have the ability to read or even comprehend being digested slowly in a Sarlacc’s belly over thousands of years.

My kids spent most of the day outside, playing with friends and their cousin.  My wife and I were inside when we heard the pained tears of a 5 year old.  I don’t know if all parents can do this, but I know that my wife and I can tell the difference between cries of pain and cries of disappointment/disgust/despair and also distinguish between the cries of a 5 YO and 7 YO.  These were definitely cries of pain and they were coming from a 5 YO.  And based on the rising frequency, they were getting closer.  We waited a few seconds before the 5 YO burst through the door leading out to the garage. 

All bones and teeth (especially teeth) seemed to be intact.  There were not copious amounts of blood, just a few scrapes and a few new bruises.  The problem seemed to be a big ass splinter (big ass < 1”, huge ass >= 1”) in the palm of his hand.  The splinter was not only big, but embedded firmly under the skin with nothing exposed above the skin’s surface. 

I received a disjointed, barely comprehensible tale of the events prior to the tears and injuries.  There was something about his brother running, and not being able to catch him, and his cousin, and a fence.  A fence?  Which fence?  Oh the broken fence that I told you not to climb over anymore?  The broken fence that has a fully functional gate that takes much less energy, time and injury to open and walk through?  Waaaaaaa, yes.  Cross examination complete, the jury finds you guilty of lacking common sense.  The sentence will be mitigated due to receiving just reward for not thinking first.

My wife and I informed the 5 YO that the splinter would have to come out.  It didn’t have to happen right then, but after his bath that night.  The rest of the day was uneventful and as the kids finished their showers I prepared the surgical instruments for the splinter extraction.  Tweezers, sewing needle, various band-aids, antibiotic ointment, topical anesthetic salve (if you can get your hands on some of this, it is AWESOME for dulling the pain of things like this).

The 5 YO made his way to the OR (normally it is the BR, but redesignated for the next few minutes until the splinter has been removed).  The eyes were already welling with new tears.  The patient was prepped with anesthetic and all of us took up their positions.  My wife would be performing this procedure.  I assumed the role of OR nurse and primary distraction.  The 7 YO would have the dual role of cheerleader and also providing random jeers and discouraging remarks.

My wife attempted several time to extract the splinter with the tweezers, but couldn’t get a hold of it. 

Me:  “Just keep looking at me, don’t look at what Mommy is doing.”

The surgeon: “It’s too far under, I need the needle.”

5 YO: “A needle, WAAAAaaaaa!”

Me: “It’s ok, we just need the needle to lift up the splinter.  It will be fine.”

7 YO: “Get the needle!”

Me: “Can you just shut up for 5 minutes?  Or at least try to be nice to your brother?”

The surgeon: “Did you burn the needle?”

5 YO: “BURN IT?!?! WAAAAAAA!”

Me: “No, Dr. Mengele, I did not burn it.  But thank you for mentioning burning and needles in the same sentence, I’m sure your patient would thank you too if he was not hysterical with fear at the thought of a burning hot needle being inserted into his already injured hand.  I did clean it with alcohol though.”

5 YO: “WAAAAAA!”

Me: “You are being so brave right now, just sit still.”

Dr. Mengele:  “This is deep.  I need to break the skin.”

Me: “Seriously?  Can you keep the comments to yourself?  I don’t think he really needs to know what is going on.  Just keep being brave, big guy.”

5 YO (barely comprehensible between the sobs and snot, his eyes locked on mine): “I… am… trying… I… brave… three… scary… houses…tried…”

Me:  “What?  What scary houses?”   (Oh! The three neighborhood houses that get decorated as haunted houses at Halloween that the kids are usually terrified of.  Every year they attempt to go up to them.  This past Halloween the 5 YO made it to one, the 7 YO made it to all of them.)

Me:  “You are doing great.  This is easier than all of those dumb scary houses.  Just keep looking at me.  You are being so brave.”

7 YO: “Yeah, you are being so brave.  Just like me.”

Wife: “Got it!”

Me:  “See?  That wasn’t so bad.  You didn’t even notice she was working on it.”

Band-aids were applied, tears wiped away.  The 5 YO was awarded a piece of Easter candy the next morning for his bravery.  The 7 YO was awarded a piece of candy for supporting his little brother and helping him through a traumatic incident.  In all fairness to my wife, she was not the Angel of Death, and did a great job in removing the splinter as quickly and painlessly as possible from a moving target.  Her bedside manner could use some work though.

Grievances

Grievance #1.  Not one, not a single or a multi-pack. Not a caramel or even a mini. Not one Cadbury Crème Egg made it to my house this Easter, either for me or for anyone else. This is not right, this is unjust.  I blame you, Mr. Easter Bunny.  How can you come to my house and bring all of these wonderful things for my children but you deny me this treat?  Have I done something to offend you?  Have I not properly decorated and prepared for your arrival?  Were the eggs not dyed and displayed to your approval?  Do you now require a blood sacrifice?  Will I have to get Cerrano on your little furry butt?  “I am pissed off now, Easter Bunny.  Look, I go to you.  I stick up for you.  You don't help me now.  I say F#$% you, Easter Bunny, I do it myself.”

Grievance #2.  I get up early on Easter Sunday.  I get dressed in a shirt and tie (this used to be an everyday thing but for the past 4 years I have kicked the shirt and tie habit).  I get the kids ready.  We make it in time for 9:00 AM mass at church.  We park almost far enough away that we could have walked from home and been there in the same amount of time.  We get our seats, we pray, we sing, we celebrate, we give our “Donations! Donations!” (I thought it was the trash).  We get in the truck to come home and the parking brake won’t release.  After some effort and a few non-Easter-y looks from other church goers, and more than a few very non-Easter-y words and directives on what the brakes and truck can perform upon itself, the brake comes free.  Now the ABS and brake lights are both lit like a little dashboard Easter egg.  We make it home with very mushy brakes and watch a little puddle of brake fluid form in the driveway.  Apparently God is not Dodge fan.

Grievance #3.  Income Taxes.  I am taking my 5th amendment right and refusing to incriminate myself.  I will say that there has to be a simpler way for me to pay for other people’s shit.  I should not have to spend several hours filling out a seemingly endless number of forms while someone (or something) that makes about $10.3 Billion more than me in income has to pay $0.  Ok, so their return is 24,000 pages printed out, so what.

Grievance #4.  What the hell happened to Spring?  I swear there used to be a season between winter and summer where the weather was mild and nice.  How do we go from having three feet of snow and then straight to 80 degree days in April?

Ok, I feel better now.  Thank you for bearing with me.  I actually had a very good weekend.  We had Honey Baked Ham on Sunday!  Do you know what is better than having Honey Baked Ham for Easter dinner?  A butt ton of leftovers!  Ham sandwiches, ham and eggs, ham rollups.  But no Creme Eggs over My Hammy (goddamn you, Easter Bunny).

I got some stuff done in the yard (the clean up has begun).  I was going to report that the truck has been repaired and ready to run, but, well, you know.  The lawn tractor is now working.  Maybe it was pissed at me for the abuse it got during leaf collection season.  Maybe it just needed a few months locked in the shed to think about its behavior and reform itself.  I may have to try this with the children.  I will let you know how it works out.

Are you a fool?

April Fools Day.  Today is one of my favorite days of the year.  I get to be a jerk (this is nothing new) and have some some justification for being that way.  Long ago, when I worked in a office with other people, not in the basement like I do today, we pulled some very elaborate pranks on each other.  Working in a cube farm made these pranks very easy to perpetrate.  Since I work from home and most of my peers or “marks” work from home as well, I had to get a little bit more imaginative.

I was hard pressed for ideas this year and couldn’t come up with anything worthy of trying.  With only a few hours before April 1st, an idea came to me.  My idea was to have one of our business partners email  another one of my peers and tell him that they have decided to go with another product. 

Here is the scenario (the names have been changed to protect the innocent/gullible/guilty):

The Mark: “Pat”

The Conspirators: Me, “PJ” – Pat’s customer, and “Jason” – Pat’s manager

The History:  “Pat” created a brilliant application several years ago, there was nothing like it in the industry and there is still nothing like it today.  This application has always been Pat’s baby and he has vigorously designed and developed it for the past 4 years, even spending 2 weeks of 20 hour days (that’s roughly 320 hours in 16 days to you mere mortals) last year to make upgrades and enhancements to it.  In total, he has probably spent over 6 months of development time, writing code for this application.  I am the “application owner” for this app and get to make all of the final decisions on what gets done to it.  I am constantly telling him what a POS it is and that I don’t want to spend any more time or effort on it, just to give him a hard time (me being a jerk when it is not April 1st).  He typically gets very defensive, threatens my life, various parts of my anatomy and my property, especially my car tires.

The Prank: PJ sent an email to Pat, copying PJ’s boss and peers and me, telling Pat that his business has decided to scrap Pat’s application in 2 months and go with a product produced by an outside vendor.  This alone would be enough to push Pat to the edge, but the kicker was:  This new application the vendor created was an exact replica of Pat’s application with a bunch of new features that Pat has been dying to add, and PJ thinks they got the idea for it after having seen Pat’s application.

How it played out: Pat immediately instant messaged me.  This is a transcript of the conversation.

“Pat” [8:58 AM]: I guess we don’t have to support “THE APP” anymore

Me [8:58 AM]: I just read that. I was going to text you. Did you talk to him?

“Pat” [8:58 AM]: Not yet

Me [8:58 AM]: Did he tell you about this before? Is this new?

“Pat” [8:59 AM]: Nope. Must be

Me [8:59 AM]: This sucks, how many months of development have we spent on this?

“Pat” [8:59 AM]: It does, like 6 months easy

Me [9:00 AM]: I wonder if the other areas will use it too

“Pat” [9:00 AM]: good question

Me [9:01 AM]: I tried emailing PJ but he is out of the office.  let me ask around

“Pat” [9:04 AM]: ok. if it is a major cost then maybe we can talk them out of it LOL.

Me [9:04 AM]: what sucks is it looks like “the vendor” stole our (your) idea and built it themselves

“Pat” [9:04 AM]: yea

Me [9:07 AM]: I talked to a project manager in the business and they said it is a corporate initiative, some deal with “the vendor”

“Pat” [9:07 AM]: then this must be something they had before us

Me [9:08 AM]: she said it will be made available to operations first, and then rolling out to line managers by end of year

“Pat” [9:08 AM]: I wonder how long this has been going on for

Me [9:09 AM]: she said the deal has been out there for a while, but this is something new they just released. she is saying we are the first to get it

“Pat” [9:10 AM]: I bet they saw ”THE APP” and figured it would be a good sale to the company

Me [9:11 AM]: I wonder if they saw the our old version and went from there.  Email PJ and see if he can get some screen prints or something

“Pat” [9:14 AM]: gonna call him

Me [9:14 AM]: Let me know if you get a hold of him. Conference me in.

“Pat” [9:14 AM]: will do. we can grill him together. bitch him out. calling now.

Me [9:16 AM]: trying to get the docs from the PM now. she said she has something on it

“Pat” [9:16 AM]: ok

Me [9:28 AM]: oh wow, this sucks. she just sent them

“Pat” [9:28 AM]: let me see!

Me [9:29 AM]: this looks just like “THE APP” almost exactly

The Reveal:  The email I sent to “Pat” which he thought contained screen prints of the new application was actually all of the conversations I had with the various co-conspirators of the prank.

The Mark’s Reaction:

“Pat” [9:32 AM]: you fuckers

“Pat” [9:33 AM]: I will beat you to death

“Pat” [9:33 AM]: good one

Me [9:33 AM]: thanks, this was a late night idea

“Pat” [9:33 AM]: you got me. I was pissed

Me [9:33 AM]: last minute, I couldn't come up with anything else

“Pat” [9:33 AM]: my heart dropped when I read this email

Happy April Fool’s Day.  I will try to post some of our previous pranks in future posts.  If you have any pranks of your own or any ideas, let me know.