Pranks

Recently I decided to part with some lovely gooseneck chairs that Reid let me take when we moved away from Spanish Fork, but which I think Karen actually claimed when Reid's office building went 100% remote. We've had a good run with them, but it was time to let them go. 

Part of the issue is that although I think they're great chairs, we've never quite had a place for them in this house. They've been "floating" chairs, roving from this room to that, with no permanent location to call home. 

And that's on me, I'm sure. 

If I was better at decorating things might have ended better between us. 

Anyway, in December we moved one of these chairs into Andrew's office to make space for the Christmas tree. So it just awkwardly sat in a corner of Andrew's office...between his desk and his bookshelf...all through Christmas break and then all through this semester as well. We never put it back where it had been before. And it became one of my frequent haunts.

Whenever I needed to talk to Andrew about something...I'd go sit in this chair. Whenever he wanted my opinion about something at his computer...I'd go sit in this chair. 

There were an astonishing number of reasons to go into Andrew's office and sit in this chair this past semester. It made me wonder why we hadn't had a chair in there the whole time we've lived here. 

It kind of became my favourite seat in the house.

Still, I had to admit that it was time to pass it along, so I posted it (and its partner) on the Buy Nothing Group, listing them as "accent chairs" because I had no idea what they were called.

I moved my favourite chair out of the corner to take this picture so that I could show them together:

And then we left them there while I was finding them a new home. Some lady commented on my post that she'd love to be considered for these beautiful gooseneck chairs. So I gave them to her...because she had a name for them. 

(I had no clue what they were actually called, which is why I simply referred to them as "accent" chairs).

This brings us to April Fool's Day when I walked into Andrew's office and absent-mindedly went to sit in my chair...which wasn't there!! Because I'd given it away!

Fortunately, I caught myself just in the nick of time, but there was a brief moment where I very nearly wound up flat on the floor. 

I told Rachel about that this evening while we were helping her do her taxes (and by "we" I mean "mostly Andrew") and she was impressed that I pulled such a successful long-game prank on myself. 

For real, though...it was a close call!

My only other April Fool's prank was this little bouquet of flowers, which Phoebe handed to me, exuberantly proclaiming, "April Fool's!" before running away cackling with glee.

They're blue toadflax, but at our house we insist on calling them purple frog email. 

And here's Phoebe cowering in Andrew's arms after she heard some thunder rumbling. She had been walking with her brothers some distance away from us but ran back to us screaming and crying lickety-split:

She hates loud noises (unless the noise originates with her) and felt like the whole world was pranking her! Shortly before we went on our walk she had been happily playing in her bedroom when the smoke detector in her room went off. She seemingly glitched her way into my room (I'm literally not sure how she managed to transport her body across the hallway—she was in such a panic) and I held her while Andrew ran up the stairs to hush the smoke detector (which he can...sorta...reach on his tiptoes while I need a stool, so I usually just let him fix them).

So Phoebe was pranked by her bedroom and pranked by the sky! What an April Fool's adventure!