[This prompt comes from April 2022]
Greetings, writers—
Happy April Fool’s Day, a holiday I have come to dread because my almost 14-year-old daughter, who loves it with all her heart, pranks us mercilessly.
This morning I came downstairs to discover that she had turned every single piece of furniture she could lift either upside down or sideways; removed every light bulb from its socket; tied the fridge as well as numerous doors shut; put plastic wrap over the toilet bowl; hidden the silverware, coffee mugs, and toilet paper; and taped the faucet sprayer on, so that water shot out when a certain person tried to fill up the electric kettle.
She’s having a birthday party tonight, and so I decided that in retaliation, I would get an extra box from the take-out pizza place and fill it with three pounds of roasted Brussels sprouts instead of pizza.
But the joke was on me, because the sprouts inside the giant bag from Costco were apparently bad—though they looked perfectly fine—and now my entire house smells like hot sulphur and farts.
So, in honor of the holiday and my lovely, annoying daughter, who is 100% not done with her pranks for the day, please consider writing one of the following:
—a scene that involves some kind of prank
—a scene in which a plan goes horribly awry
Include any one or more of the following words or phrases, should you so desire (they come from Grace Paley’s story “In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All”:
stubborn fools • cockroach • a serious man • sideways leer • a piece of noonday sky • the beginning of everything is damp and small • hint • barbed wire• loitering infants • the ineluctable future • cabbage soup • trembling • Tennis, anyone?