Back when I was in college, I lived in a three-bedroom apartment with five other guys. The place was dubbed “The Ship of Fools,” after a Grateful Dead song.
It was the spot for numerous gatherings. With two guys in each room, the place looked like an army barrack, but with liquor bottles strewn everywhere.
In fact, Wednesday night was “Liquor Night” and guests would bring favorite bottles of poison and party their brains out. We always had an endless supply of Jim Beam — it flowed like mountain water from the hollers of Virginia.
From the Jim Beam classic White label, to Black and Green, they lined the top of the kitchen cabinets.
When JB went on sale at the liquor store, sometimes they would offer shot glasses in the shape of cowboy boots. Or, one year the bottles were packaged with a Jim Beam belt buckle. We felt like big, strong, liquor drinkin’ men. But looking back, we probably looked more like a bunch of scrawny kids with something to prove — each with a serious drinking problem to boot (no pun intended).
The Ship of Fools became a testing ground for, well, fools to get more foolish.
Since all of us were Deadheads, we experimented with all of the psychedelics we could get our hands on, and smoked enough pot to make Cheech and Chong look like Andy Taylor and Barney Fife.
Fools we were, but friends we would stay – forever.
April Fools’ Day on the ship was always something to remember.
One of my fondest memories was the year that Eller told Jon-boy that the landlord had discovered all of the pot plants he was growing in the back corner of the property.
Since they were ready to harvest, Jon-boy decided he would just clip off all the buds and smoke everything. Well, he did. And it wasn’t a pretty sight.
That afternoon, we found him wandering the college campus, dressed in a ship’s captain costume, telling everybody that the Titanic was sinking. He was having people sign a petition to, “get the ship flying again.”
Our senior year, Grimmer told Chris that our spring break was going to be extended for a week. Chris was extremely gullible and surprisingly didn’t check with anybody else. He stayed in the Outer Banks for an extra week, missing a pile of classwork and spring soccer practices.
We all know the feeling. The sense of trickery and foolishness when friends or family swindles us on that first day of April.
Once we realize we are victims of the good-humored abuse, our first reaction is, “Oh, thank God!” then we begin planning a deceptive retaliatory attack on the sucker of choice.
The best part is that it can be evil, sneaky, fraudulent or just too funny.
But remember: keep your antennas up, because throughout the day you will need to maneuver through the conspiracy.
Happy April First, you fools.