April Fool's Day is 365 days a year

Believe me. When you put 16 men together in one Firehouse, you just can't help playing jokes all the time on them. Of course, you have to be prepared to have jokes played back at you. I am prepared. Always.

Our Firehouse has two sleeping quarters. They are across the hall from each other. Both sleeping quarters have doors but they are never closed in case we need to run out on a call half asleep in the middle of the night.

This gives me an idea. I examine those doors and realize both of them open INWARD. (Guess whoever put the doors on knew all too well the bumps on the head one would get whenever someone opened those doors into the hallway!) So they open inward. This is good. Mind you, the doors are always open for "practical reasons." Well, I don't feel like being practical. Evil is more like it. ;-) After all, in just a few hours it will be April 1st. I can't just let it pass me by now, CAN I ???? (Ok, ok, don't judge me just yet!)

I make plans, I readjust the plans. This goes on for a couple hours. What I have in mind has to be JUST RIGHT or the whole thing will be ruined. I finally get to the point where I am confident I can pull this joke off..... and single handedly against all those men who claim to "look out for my butt in dangerous situations." (I might be dead after this joke so please keep their sentiments for me in mind! I'll need them as backup later!)

Everyone has retired for the night, hoping to sleep the whole night through without any calls. We were quite busy during the day so we are kind of bushed. I lie awake listening..... for those "sounds" that eventually come which tell me they are sound asleep... ok, and for the snoring too. This is my key that I can get up and do what I have to do.

I leave the sleeping quarters I am in and close the door. I close the door of the other room right across the hall. I then tie a rope from one doorknob to the other; carefully leaving about 2 inches of slack in the rope. I walk to the dispatch room. Captain Harold is in the dispatch room drinking coffee and watching TV with one of the operators.

"Whatcha doing up?" he asks. (It is 3 am)

"Couldn't sleep," I tell him. He looks at me and studies my face. I pretend to watch the TV.

"What are you up to?" he asks.

"Nothing. Just couldn't sleep."

This is my Captain. He knows me better than anyone else. (I hate this fact).

"What did you do?" he insists.

"Nothing."

"I know you better than this. You have this 'Gonna-get-you-good!' look on your face. What are you planning?"

"Nothing."

"I'll bet you 25 bucks it doesn't work!" he says.

"Make it a hundred," I tell him.

I ask Chester (our dispatch guy) to hit the fire alarms in two minutes. These are like the fire alarms that go off in schools for the fire drills.

Captain Harold and I walk to our observatory positions. We wait. Then the fire alarms go off.

THUD! (I suppose this is the first person in line in the room on the left trying to go out the door that is surprisingly shut)

THUD! (Ditto for the room on the right)

And then the fun begins. I see the lights under the doors go on. People in the sleeping quarters on the left try to open the door at the same time the ones on the right try to open THEIR door. Since there is only two inches of rope slack, it turns into a tug-o'-war.

It doesn't take much to humor me. I am laughing so hard. Those guys are barely awake and can't figure out what is going on. I look at my Captain.......

He is counting out a hundred dollars.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They should all be glad I didn't repeat my joke from 2 years ago when I put "Itching powder" in all their clothes. Ok, mostly their underclothes. Watching them all standing there in public (we were on a call in the city) scratching themselves was a sight to behold! And to see it on the evening news was even better!

It wasn't even April 1st that day! You can always expect the unexpected here. And remember... I am always one step ahead of you men! :-)))

The truth has two sides.

The jokes and the teasing of new rookies is a must in every Firehouse. It is a Rite of Passage. We all go through it and then we learn to outdo the jokes that were played on us as rookies.

I have watched young rookies trying to find out what smelled so bad no matter where they went in the Firehouse. They would ask if anyone else smelled the stench. Of course, we'd all deny that we did. Little did they know they were walking around with stink bomb liquid in their shoes.

I once played a joke on one of our rookies but it backfired on me. I had placed a bar of soap in the bathroom. This was the kind of soap that turned your hands black although the soap was white. I waited impatiently for my rookie to come and wash his hands after working on one of the rigs.

I heard the bathroom door close and jumped up to wait for the fun to happen when he emerged. I was standing there trying to quell the giggles. To my horror, out of the bathroom emerges my Captain, who obviously had just washed his face! I can imagine how my face looked at that moment.

"You ok?" he asks.

Honestly, all I could say was, "No, not now."

I headed for the apparatus bay hoping desperately for a call to come in before I got "caught" and in trouble. Time seemed to edge by slowly..... too slowly.

Then I heard the laughter. I thought things were ok. I tried to calm down. And then it came...

"SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEENAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

I cursed the rookie who was supposed to be in the bathroom with that soap.

Nick comes to me and says, "Cap wants a word with you."

"Am I in trouble?" I ask.

"For what?" he asks innocently.

Maybe it wasn't that bad after all.

Wrong.

I walked into the kitchen where my Captain was getting some coffee. He turned around and the black on his face had darkened considerably from the time I first saw him emerging from the bathroom.

Captain Harold started to scold me but the alarms rang. He hesitated at first. I mean, did he REALLY want to go out in public looking like that? Oh well, maybe they will think he came from another fire or something.

The call was uneventful and although some of the other Firefighters and Paramedics snickered at the sight of Harold, my Captain never did scold or reprimand me. I wish he had though because silence is worse than anything else. You never know when the tables will be turned on you. I am still waiting.

The guys decided to play a joke on our new rookie, Cody. While Cody was in the shower, the guys took his clothes from the shower room.

"Now THAT is a unique joke!" I commented to myself. Taking the clothes of someone showering is an old and classic joke. One just hopes they left the towel so they'd have something to cover up in while searching out the culprit of this "It's -not-funny" kind of joke.

Cody's clothes were returned. (I am in my office watching the men trek back and forth to the shower room).

"Chickens!" I am thinking.

About 10 minutes later I hear Cody curse and growl. Funny how one who never cursed before in his life learns to do so in the Firehouse!

Cody stomps into my office. "Did YOU do that?" he demands, face flushed. I am wondering what he means by "that".

"Do what?" I ask.

"Put the glue in my briefs?"

("No way! They didn't!" I am thinking. Ok, so I am probably the Master of playing jokes and pulling pranks here in the Firehouse but I HAVE to be. I am up against 16 men each and every day. I have to hold my OWN, don't I? But I would NEVER put glue in someone's briefs! Or WOULD I???)

I told Cody I didn't do anything to his briefs. God, I must be the only woman on earth who would have said this to him! Mind you, he is 28, gorgeous, tanned and really built nicely. But he IS my rookie after all and I don't allow myself to think "that way".

I am wondering what kind of glue the guys used. It might come in handy next time I play a joke ;)

Cody stomps off to find the others. Actually, he was walking kind of funny. He walks into the recreation room. The laughter is like a bunch of kindergarten kids on the playground. Cody swears to get them back. They try to blame it on me but since I wasn't laughing (yet), I was presumed innocent. (This "keeping a straight face" has saved my butt on many occasions).

Seems Cody's briefs were lined with double-sided tape in the most inappropriate place and since Cody thought it was glue...... or better yet, superglue, he was afraid to take them off for fear of removing more than just the underwear. He was assured he would remain intact and Cody left to disengage himself from his briefs.

I can tell you now... those men are in big trouble. Sometimes new rookies can get back at you in ways you never imagined!

There are always two sides to the truth. Always.