Aprils Fooling Around Again

Every year I try to play a silly April Fools prank on my brother, classic sibling rivalry. The last few years I have done something small and silly like posting a Free Goats ad on craigslist with his phone number listed. But this year I wanted it to be big. I wanted it to be something I could quite possibly never top. So I started planning and brain storming about a month ago and decided I wanted to stick with the theme of an ad, but bigger. Nothing is bigger to me in an ad than a billboard.

Unfortunately billboards are very expensive, even the digital ones that just flash up different advertisements. So I almost dropped the idea altogether but talked it out with my friends in my band and one of them said he could “make” me a billboard. Now I needed something to put on the billboard…

Ever since we were kids I have always told my brother he was adopted, or hatched from a strange egg, because he had blonde curly hair and the rest of the family had brown straight hair. My wife reminded me of this when I was brainstorming ideas one night and I knew this was going to be it. This was the path to Glory.  

So I told Cory, my Graphic designer friend, my idea and we started working on it a few weeks ago. I started making plans on how I wanted to choreograph this out. I went out and took pictures of billboards that I thought were in unidentifiable locations. Cory got to work on the picture and I started gathering accomplices. Cory finished the photo just in time Sunday night before April Fools.

It was perfect. Very hard to tell it was photo shopped if presented in the right way. I spoke with my cousin, Lauren, at Easter dinner and worked out how I wanted her to post this on Facebook the next morning. Then I spoke with one of Justin’s most trusted friends that also lived in that area, and brought him in on it so he could call and confirm with my brother that he saw it on the way to work. So I told her to post the picture around 7 am with the subtext, “So I saw this on my way to work and had to stop and take a picture. I had NO IDEA my cousin, Justin, was adopted!!” It took him about 7 minutes to see it. Trust me, I sat there at my desk and waited for it. His response, “Oh my God, are you flipping serious?!?!? I am going to kill my brother!! Where is this?!” I was in tears from laughing so hard.

I messaged Justin’s friend Adrian and let him know it was go time. He called me a little later and told me how it went without a hitch.

Adrian: “Umm… Justin… I am on my way to work right now and I am 80%... well 90% sure I saw your face on a giant billboard.”

Justin:”Are you FREAKING serious?!? Where is it?!”

Adrian:”It’s on I-65 past the tank farm exit, I was messing with my radio and barely saw it. Do you know what it says?”

Justin:”Yeah… my brother bought that bill board. It says something about me being ADOPTED.”

Adrian:*Laughs and Laughs*

Justin:”This is so not funny!! It will probably be up there for weeks!!”

                When Adrian reiterated this conversation to me I just died laughing. I couldn’t imagine that this would get much better until Justin actually went looking for the billboard and couldn’t find it. But then the post on Facebook sort of went viral among all of our friends and family. Currently it has been reposted 22 times, and none us are letting on that it is not even really there. I have had a few people saw they were going by there soon and I was able to send them a message and get them to keep playing along.

                Through out the day my brother sent me a lot of threatening messages, but the clincher was when he finally called me.

Justin: “Hey…”

LeAlan: “Hey Buddy, How’s it going?”

Justin: “Is this for real?”

LeAlan: “Did you see the picture? Yeah… it’s real. “

Justin: “*Groans* How long is it gonna be up there for?”

LeAlan: “Well they said 2 weeks minimum, but maybe longer if they don’t get a replacement ad soon.”

Justin:”Oh my God… When did they even put it up?”

LeAlan:” Oh they put it up a few days ago, and then covered it with a film that they tore off yesterday afternoon, I was worried someone would see it last night.”

Justin: “Well… you got me. All the guys here at work are rolling. I guess the only good thing about this is that you will never top it!”

LeAlan: “Yeah that’s probably true. Well, call me when you want to go see it and I’ll ride down there with you.”

Justin:”Alright, yeah I’ll call you after work.” 

He sounded so defeated. It was glorious.

Here we are, still in the middle of a story in progress. I am going to tell him in a little bit, to save him a trip down there, but I am going to let him stew in it as long as possible. I can’t really say there has ever been a time where I have laughed quite this much or this hard. This will long be one of my happiest memories and I am sure the subject of conversations for many years to come.