Well as most of you know, today is April Fool’s Day, the one day out of the year where pranks and silliness are the norm. I’m sure by now that you’ve probably felt the wrath of the fool’s day. The guy from next door has probably already sprayed whipped cream or some other frothy substance all over your door. Go look right now, I’ll even bet he has.

But this one day of tomfoolery and silly playfulness has indeed played a significant negative role in today’s society.

April Fool’s day began on April 1, 1953, under the Eisenhower administration. Eisenhower and his cabinet enacted this “holiday” in order to curb youthful giddiness, playfulness and, of course, foolishness. In the few years prior, there had been a giant outbreak of foolishness, due to the large amount of children brought about by the baby boom.

The outbreak’s precocious leader, who’s only known alias was “Dennis,” was quite the menace to society. Using seemingly harmless pranks, such as shooting various things with his slingshot and ruining his elderly neighbor’s garden, he incited a nationwide, and later worldwide, revolution of children and young adults to be foolish.

This epidemic caused countless (some estimates put it in the trillions) hours of work in this nation to be lost. Most economists attribute the lag of the economy in the mid- and early fifties to this.

The Eisenhower Administration thought that if they put aside one day a year just for foolishness, in that one day all foolishness would be expended by the population for the year, and normal work ethics and behavior would resume for the rest.

This fascist tradition continues today, and because most people don’t know the beginnings of it, they celebrate it as some sort of prank holiday and don’t realize the rationale behind it. The right-wing moralists in power are just trying to repress us in any way possible, and this is one of its many, scary forms.

What if, say, there were only one day set aside for love called “Love Day” or just one day set aside to celebrate the birthday of Santa Claus, it’s ridiculous! For a counterexample, there is no official “Beer Day” and people drink beer almost constantly. But because foolishness is hated the most by the right-wingers, they had to impose just one day for it.

You’re probably asking yourself right now, “Holy crap, I never knew that April Fool’s day, sometimes called All Fool’s Day, had such an insanely oppressive beginning. I feel the need to protest, but what can I do?”

Well, it’s easy. The first thing you can do is move out of Urbana, especially if you live in Allen Hall. That way you won’t feel the urge to protest as much. If you still feel the need to “change the world,” then all you have to do is be silly all of the time, except of course on April Fool’s Day itself. If anyone plays a prank on you, punch him or her in the neck. Being silly on April Fool’s Day would be conforming to the illegitimate standard imposed by the Christian right.

On a nondesignated fool’s day, if you’re feeling especially devious, you can play massive pranks that either destroy people’s legitimate work or take up days of their time. That way not only are you being silly and not being constructive yourself, you are majorly hindering the progress and work that Eisenhower so craved from Americans.

So now that you know the true history of April Fool’s Day, spread the word and remember to stick it to the man!

Eric Uskali is a freshman in engineering and regrets to admit that this column was a joke (but please don’t punch him in the neck). His column runs Fridays. He can be reached at [email protected].