Who’s the big April fool?

Today that would be me.

I fell for a ridiculous April Fool’s joke. In my defense I was operating on less than four hours of sleep and looking for an out. You see, my training for next month’s big 25K isn’t going so well. Illness sidelined me for a few weeks last month and now I’m way off my training schedule and dragging my rear.

So when a message arrived in my inbox early this morning while I was rushing to proofread next Sunday’s craft column. I opened it and gasped. The e-mail stated the big race I’d hoped to run again this year was canceled because the locals didn’t want to deal with the influx of traffic. Even though it sounded like ridiculous reason to cancel, I did not question the truth of the message. I wasn’t disappointed. I was relieved.

Skepticism didn’t even register. I was too tired to think critically and sadly read right over the lame rationale.

Right away I thought of the sign in front of the church that my friend mentioned passing on her way to my house the other day. “If you can’t decide, circumstances will choose for you.” (Or something to that effect.) I immediately forwarded the e-mail to my husband at work. “Circumstances just took care of themselves” was my subject line. My message went on to express my shock and relief over the so-called cancellation of the big race because I don’t feel ready. I also encouraged Jeff to make sure the sports department at the newspaper where we work was on top of this unfortunate development.

Jeff’s response was calm and swift as usual.

“Check the date,” he responded via e-mail.

“Huh? What?” I said aloud, sitting alone at our kitchen table in my PJs.

I read the race cancellation message again and finally realized I had just fell for one of the lamest April Fools gags ever. I wanted to kick myself and the guy who sent the e-mail. Son of a stitch.

So that’s the genius way I started my day. After that I was kind of bracing for what would happen next.

The good news is that I don’t think I fell for any other pranks, at least none that I’m aware of. On the way back from Abby’s pre-school parent/teacher conference I checked the ol’ P.O. Box and found an envelope containing the smartly wrapped package at the top of this post from Laura Buzard, owner of Laura Bee Designs in Seattle. (CraftSanity episode 39)

Check out what was inside:

Laura printed my sister, Julie’s, awesome photo of Amelia photographing my quilt and stitched in onto a lovely mini-wallet. I LOVE it, Laura! Thank you! After showing showing it off to my family, I stuffed it with a stack of CraftSanity business cards.

Now I just have to sort out this whole 25K situation…