I saw April Fools, and because of that, I will tell three stories. The first was from my time at the Academy. The second was a trick I played on my shipmate on April Fools day, and the third was something someone did to me (although not in April).
1. Every now and then you will have "Urine Analysis" at the Academy, many times after a long weekend, to check for drugs, (this doesn't end at the Factory, you will have it at every unit you go to.) You find out because they put up sheets on the head doors saying "SSN ending in XX must report between XXX and XXX for urine analysis..." Well, everyone wakes up one day and sees the notice, doesn't go before breakfast because they wanted something left, and reported to the normal head that was used for the urine analysis, but when they got there....no one from the administration was there to collect the samples....that's when people realized it was April 1. That was a good trick, especially considering how people would force themselves to wait to go after breakfast.
2. On my ship my housemate and old roommate from the ship had eye surgery at Bethesda. Over the following weeks, he would tell me everything he was feeling and how it was out of focus sometimes and how his eyes would dry out, etc. Well, April 1 rolls around and I call from my cell phone to the ship's phone, claiming to be "Dr. Oglethorpe" from Bethesda. I told him I was checking up on his surgery and asked it anything was wrong. He said no. I then asked if he had been experiencing any dryness or if his vision was out of focus....and when he replied that it had in fact done that, I told him that we were concerned that some of the equipment used in his surgery had been contaminated and that we needed him to return to Bethesda asap for more tests. Well this did not make my friend very comfortable. He asked if he could call back because he needed to check on something...and that's when I told him who I was.....I had to run down to the armory and make sure he was ok....I could hear the GM1 laughing in the phone.
3. It was assignment time, and the clock was ticking down. I wasn't sure where I was going. The day we were supposed to get the notification, I got a call on the ship's phone, but it didn't go through. Later that day I got another call.
"LTJG LITS, I see you want Congressional Affairs?" LCDR Someone said.
"Oh yes sir." I responded.
"We gave that to an OCS grad. Are you ok with going OCONUS?" he said back to me.
"Uh, yes sir." I replied.
"You will be headed to the UK as the assistant liaison officer to British Parliament." He came back with.
Now, when it's assignment season, it's very hard to know when to call BS...so I had to pause for about 15-30 seconds before I called him out and figured out it was a fellow JO, the DCA on my ship.
I figured out it was the right call at 9:30 PM when the caller had a 202 (DC) area code.