Don't Get Caught With A Fish On Your Back
For my entire life, April 1st has always been April Fool’s Day. Changing continents didn’t change this fact one bit. This tradition, despite the distance in continents and history, exists on the same day throughout the world I guess. Italy is not excluded.The Pesce d’Aprile (The Fish of April or April Fool’s Trick) is a factor for every youngster and even some adults. Here’s how it works. The youngster very secretly and cautiously attaches a small paper cutout of a fish, with the help of some tape or other adhesive, to the back of a classmate, friend, or enemy. Then everybody who sees this person with the fish jokingly asks “L’hai visto?” “Chi?” “Il pesce d’Aprile!” (Have you seen? Who? The April Fool!) This, of course, is followed by warm remarks of making-fun about the victim. Some of the pranks for adults revolve around free money being given out somewhere, announcements from the ministry about aliens landing on the planet and so on. The media usually reports on the most low-down and yet comical tricks carried out during the day on gullible citizens.
Personally, this didn’t happen to me this year, but I did have the pleasure of seeing some adults walking around town unaware (possibly?) about the fact that they had a small colored fish taped to their back. I guess my co-workers are more kind than others, or they simply kept it as a game for the children. At any rate, I escaped this April Fool’s Day unharmed and mentally stable due to the lack of humiliation and frustration that is normally out there for everybody to endure on this special day.