April Fool’s Day…and I’m The Fool

So I’m gullible. Throughout the course of our relationship, Kevin has gotten me to believe that wild pigs could bust through the door of our vacation house at any minute, that he took ballet lessons as a child, and that he’d once been chased by alligators. Seriously.

The problem lies not only with my extreme gullibility, but with his exceptional ability to tell a lie with a straight face. (Hmmm…do I WANT to be married to this guy?)

Example: This morning I was cleaning the living room when he walked in with a stricken expression on his face.

“What…what is it?” I said, my neurotic meter immediately leaping to DEFCON 3.

“Um, I found a dead rat in the front room,” he responded in a steady voice.

He had spotted a rat running up our drain pipe a few days before and mentioned it to me, so the idea didn’t seem too far-fetched – even though our brick house had a new roof, and I couldn’t see how a rat could have gotten in.

As he stood, seemingly stunned at the news he had just delivered, I moved into full-fledged panic mode. “Oh…my God,” I whispered, running past him already writing my To Do List: 1) Call exterminator 2) Find hole where rat got in 3) Figure out how to pick up dead rat without barfing.

Hustling past him, caught up in the drama, I barely heard him half-whisper, “April Fool’s Day.”

Stopping in my tracks, I quickly turned and began physically assaulting him with my hands while he laughed and laughed. “You are an asshole! An asshole!” I screamed, annoyed yet simultaneously thrilled our home had not been invaded by rodents.

I guess all of this explains why on the night we got engaged (in the middle of beautiful Big Bend National Park at sunset in front of a sky that looked like a painting), the first words out of my mouth when he got down on one knee and produced a ring were, “Seriously, are you serious?! I mean, like serious?”

I know he does it because it’s so easy to do. And because he’s so good at it, and I always fall for it, and when the joke is over we both really do enjoy a good laugh. But I’m getting a little tired of being the butt of his little jokes. So between you and me, I’ve decided on a strategy. The next time he pulls one of his cheap stunts, I’ll wait a few days and then announce I’m pregnant. With triplets. Seriously.