not really my prank or one played on me directly, but I work in a group home and a few years ago one of my clients got some ketchup and put it on the floor at the bottom of the stairs where he lay motionless until one of the staff found him... it was simultaneously hilarious and frightening.

I was going to say the kitchen sprayer one--i got hit with that once by a guy I lived with, who had no intention of getting me.

One April Fools my (guy) roommate got really drunk that night before, and then accidentally crawled in bed nearly naked with my (girl) roommate. He tried to pass it off as April Fools when we told him the next day.

In high school we had a big group of Danish exchange students. The host group told them to bring formal wear, because they would be going to a fancy restaurant in a big white castle. I think you can see where this one went...

My best April Fools' Day joke happened somewhat by accident rather than through careful planning.

It was 1997, and I was news editor for the Budgeteer. Dick Palmer was executive editor. This was just a few months before the Budgeteer had e-mail.

We did have a modem that we used so Mr. Palmer could send in his articles from home. (He was semi-retired.)

One day, I was trying to find something on the computer and accidentally came across the programming for the modem and discovered it was very easy to change the prompts. So ...

Usually, when Mr. Palmer would send in an article, he would have to click "yes" or whatever to a series of two or three questions. I think the last question was, "OK to send document?"

I changed that question to "Destroy entire system?"

A few days went by, and, as luck would have it, it was April Fools Day when Mr. Palmer went to send in his next article. As you can image, he was quite alarmed.

I mean, imagine what you would think if a prompt popped up on your screen asking if it's OK to destroy the entire system. On one hand, it can't be serious, but on the other hand, how can you click "yes" to something like that?