Week Thirteen: All-Fools' Party

Caution: You are really, really going to see Cokesbury go crazy here. Absolutely bonkers. So bonkers, in fact, Cokesbury prefaces the party with the following:

As a person who is foolish is said to be "nutty" or "a nut," the nut idea has gotten into April first. Stunts and pranks are permissible on this day. Funny situations are the vogue.

The vogue, folks. The vogue. All I can say is, get ready, in the exact fashion of the Get Ready Man from James Thurber's My Life and Hard Times. The end of the worrrrrrlllllld!

On All-Fool's Night its our intention
to gather for a rube convention,
Or Nuts with gather at the hour of eight;
We know no more, but don't be late.
Bring a dime store toy that makes a noise,
and leave behind your dignity and poise.

In the invitation, of course, more evidence that Cokesbury will do anything for a rhyme.

Ready for the first Cokesbury joke? Here goes:

The Setting for the Party. One suggestion would be to have everything backward. The hostess will meet the guests at the kitchen door and ask them to come again, and express the hope that they have enjoyed the party. The clock might strike eleven as the guests enter, and the refreshments may be served at the beginning of the party instead of at the close.

If it is not desirable to follow out the above suggestion, another idea would be to put a sign on the front door: "Wet paint; use the back door (or the side door)." Then have another sign on the back door (or the side door) which says "April Fool. Go back and use the front door."

Have some surprises. Put noise-making balloons under the chair cushions and have some jack-in-the-boxes sitting around. Have some candy made out of cotton and covered with chocolate setting on the table marked, "Have one," or perhaps not marked at all.

Gadzooks, folks. Backwards greetings! Wet paint! Farty cushions and jack-in-the-boxes! Candy made from cotton, cleverly laid out with a sign inviting the chumps who fell for the other jokes to dig in! Cokesbury is one madcap prankster. Of course, for the anal retentive guests, it would be fun to watch them bounce from back door to front door (or side door) all night until either frustration, exhaustion, or pity on the part of the other guests demonstrated in the removal of one of the signs, finally got the better of them. And pardon me for being a suspicious one, but any bowl of candy laid out with signs and arrows pointing towards it inviting me to consume sends up red flags. I don't care if it's in the White House, I'm not taking any.

On to the next game:

The Foot That Comes Off. Require all the boys, instead of shaking hands with the girls, to shake the girl's foot instead. A row of girls are seated with one leg across the other knee, and the last girl has improvised an artificial leg, which when shaken comes off. This might be made by stuffing a stocking and putting a shoe on it and arranging so that the real foot and leg will be concealed. The room should be dark, and the boys should be brought in one at a time and asked to shake the foot of the girls present. This might be arranged in another way, and the host might put up a sign that, instead of shaking the hand of the hose, it is asked that guests shake the foot, and the foot, when shaken, might be arranged to that it will come off.

So aside from Cokesbury blowing the joke with the title of the game, this is, at the fundament of it all, kinda weird. Again, great amusement may be had in watching the germophobic anal retentives attempt this game.

Now, remember those noise-makers you were supposed to bring? Here's where they come into play. They're tossed into a "grab bag," and, one at a time, guests pull something out of the bag. "These are then opened," Cokesbury says, barely containing a giggle, "and the guests will get much amusement by playing with them." Perhaps you might want to start this game during the previous one, so the guests waiting for the others to come back from shaking the girls' feet might have something to do to amuse themselves aside from re-inflating the farty cushions.

The next game, you'll find, is best suited for those who have many friends of the sweaty-palm variety.

Threading the Needle. Select three or four persons for a needle-threading contest. The leader tells them that the object is to see who can thread the needle quickest with one eye closed. The needle is easily threaded, but the fun comes when the guests see that the ones who have held their hands over one eye of the contestants have had lampblack on the, so that one eye of each is quite black.

Oh yeah. This is where your Uncle Harvey got the old lampblack joke. And what, pray tell, is lamp black? Traditionally, it is said, lampblack is soot collected from oil lamps. That's why you need friends of the sweaty-palmed variety, so no one will suspect the eye-hider has anything on their hands but the expected bodily excretions. To make lampblack of your own, you may use soot form a fireplace -- which nowadays, in some circles, are as anachronistic as oil lamps, come to think about it. So here's some commercially-available lampblack for you. Don't worry, you Gen. Ripper folks out there; these folks promise their lampblack is of unquestionable purity, being extracted from oil furnaces. Again, a great, great game for the anal retentives in your crowd.

But that's enough of forcing guests to shake stinky feet and wash greasy soot off their faces. This is an All-Fool's Party, after all, which, according to Cokesbury, implies also forcing your guests to admire your rubbish:

The Art Museum. While some are guessing the name of [a game we skipped in this description because of its lameness], others might be taken to the museum. There they will find the following exhibits:

• The Watch on the Rhine (Watch on an orange peeling)
• A diamond Pin (A dime and pin)
• A Marble Bust (A broken marble)
• A Swimming Match (A match floating on water)
• Peacemakers (A pair of scissors)
• One-Eyed Monster (Sewing needle)
• Tamed Groundhog (Links of sausage)
• A Texas Necktie (A rope noose)
• Paraside (A pair of dice)
• Slippers (Banana peel)
• A Perfect Foot, Twelve Inches (A ruler one foot long)
• Something to Adore (A doorknob)
• Champion American Tumblers (Three glasses)
• Ten Carrot Ring (Ring made from ten carrots)
• Lost Souls (Pair of old shoe souls)
• Something Out of King Tut's Tomb (Anything not in it)

You know, the depressing part is that I just threw out a pair of old shoes. Now I may have to purposely wear out a pair just to go along with this magnificent All-Fool's game. You can probably borrow the Texas Necktie from the same fellow who knew what KKK stood for at the Try-Your-Luck Party last week.

Forget that. On to the next game, which requires your whistle!

Are You What We Suspected? Prepare sheets for each guest marked off as the one illustrated below. They are to fill in these blanks. It will require at least ten or fifteen minutes for this. The leader should explain that the idea is to use words that others will not think about. After the leader's whistle blows and all have stopped writing, grade as follows: Score ten for each person having word no one else has. If two ahve it, nine each; three, eight each; four, seven each; more than four, it counts as one. Take off five for each space that is left blank. This is a good writing game and could easily be made to consume half an hour.

So now your party is over, fun and madcap and nutty as it was. Time for refreshments, which, again, involve your rubbish:

Serve a salad in a banana skin. Carefully remove the fruit from the skin and fill with Waldorf salad, potato salad, tuna fish salad, or any other salad. Conceal two olives under the two halves of an English walnut shell. Serve this to the guests, and then later bring in a drink. Hot chocolate with whipped cream or punch.

And when someone asks you to explain the concealed olives in the English -- yes, it has to be English -- walnut shell, shrug and say you don't know, because Cokesbury doesn't explain it at all. Sorry.

Now that's over, you might think we're past the lame happenings of the first of April. Not so. Next week, it's the April-Fish Party, which promises a lot of madcap comedy and other delights. But, alas, no lampblack. But lots to do with fish.