How to feel like an April Fool.

So to me April 1st hasn't meant anything special since elementary school. Even the past few years teaching high school have been nothing special (other than the fact that kids lie more openly and justify it by yelling "April Fools!" I've never been pranked though.

Today everything seemed normal enough. My 10th graders were a little more obnoxious than usual but you can hardly blame that on the date. At the end of the period, just before my first class of 9th graders were to decend upon me, one of my past students came into class and warned me that some girls in the next class were planning to prank me. I only half believed him but it put me on my guard. My AP just happened to be in my class at the beginning of the period squelching any pranking plans for the present. A few minutes after he left I stood at the front of the room trying to get everyone's attention, (I do that a lot), when two girls started yelling at one another. I didn't even know how it started. It quickly escalated into a fight. Most students were out of their desks, yelling or trying to break it up.

I stood there, at the front of the room, emotionless through the whole thing. Security came in and took the girls out. One asked me to write it up. I agreed to. I was practically comatose. Not even my expression changed. The girls reentered the room a few minutes later and proclaimed that it was a joke. They had gone to the trouble of getting security and the dean in on it and I didn't even crack a smile. (I'm getting too good at that.) Now I just feel mean. I had successfully outwitted 14 year olds. Why do I not feel more victorious?

This story isn't turning out as well as I thought it would. I feel like the most boring person in the world. I like jokes. I enjoy laughing. Did I set my standards for funny so high that what they came up with couldn't make me laugh? I could easily have feigned surprise, but I felt it was beneath me. At one point I even wondered if they might be serious, but there I stood, face of stone, not doing anything. They were a little deflated, and that's what I feel the worst about. They're kids. They were trying to have fun and I spoiled it. I couldn't make myself care enough to play along. GRRRRRRRR. I need a vacation.