Don’t get fooled today

Do you realize that today is April fool’s Day? So be on guard, lest you be taken in by an April Fools’ joke. Haha, it would be wise to remember that not everyone has a sense of humor. I must confess that I have played harmless jokes on my friends, college and family on this day. After being serious for more than 300 plus days a year, it is nice to have a day off for jokes. You should be prepared to be fooled on April 1 and not take it to heart.

This morning, I played one joke on Veronica. She was taken in for a few minutes before she realized that it might be an April Fools’ joke. Others were not so fortunate.

The big one was played in front of 200 participants in the seminar we held at the Crown Plaza Riverside Hotel today. I went up to the stage and spoke with a serious tone. “Today is a very unfortunate day. One of you here thinks that you are a smart Alec. During the break, you went to the staff room and tried to be fresh with one of our female staff. You tried to get onto her and tried to kiss her... Even though she told you that she has absolutely no interest, you still persisted on. During the struggle, she took a sharp pencil and struck you and injured your palm. We know who you are. We have informed the police. After this announcement. I'd like to see you behind.” The whole room was in dead silence. Then I took out my hand from my pocket and it was bandaged in red ink. They all started to laugh.

We played a joke on Phoebe. First, I asked Shirlynn to text her and pretend to be Ben, a good looking Chinese guy from Australia whom Phoebe just met. We tricked her to believe that Ben was trying to date her. From the way she responsed, we could feel her heart pounding. She almost freaked out. Kekeke, she will be more careful next year.

We played a joke on Yang Po too. As she is still recovering from her illness, we only planned a mild joke. Hope she laughed at the joke and recovers sooner.

We played a joke on June Yuen. Shirlynn texted June and told her that the seminar was badly organized and that Jessie has broke down, cried and now cannot be found. We were all worried for her. We just managed to stop June as she was booking her air ticket to fly to Kuching to help.

The seminar ended at about 7 pm and we went for dinner behind the hotel. Along the way, we bumped into Kelvin and Michael from Hong Kong. We went back to the same place that Simon took us last night. The seafood is very good there. The only thing lacking is a good dessert. After the dinner, Fabian suggested we go to the Starbuck's nearby.

As we were waiting for the coffee, Douglas whispered in my ear that one of the speakers, Sam has requested that he does not want another speaker, Francis to be in the room when he speaks tomorrow. The reason is that, he does not want Francis to copy his speech. It is a serious matter and can be a potential time bomb if we do not address the issue immediately. I suggested to Douglas that we should call both Sam and Francis to sit together and iron out the differences. Douglas said he will meet them and handle it. We went back to our room. I was worried.

It was 11.50 pm when my phone rang. Alice, Sam’s lovely wife called. “Richard, Douglas and Sam met and Sam was very upset. He has gone to Francis’s room. I am afraid. He might punch him”. My heart dropped to my toe. Sam is a big rough American. Francis will be no match for him. “Where is Douglas?” I asked. The last thing I wanted is to have 2 professional men pounding on one another. “He is going after Sam” Alice replied. “What do you think is the best thing to do?” I asked, at a loss for words. “I don’t know. I thought I'd just let you know”, Alice replied. “Is there anything that Francis did today that upset Sam?” I asked, trying to think hard about my next move. I wanted to go stop the fight but I don’t know in which room Francis is staying. He is on the 17 floor. I am sure there will be a commotion and it will be easy to spot.

“What is the day today?” Alice added. “1 April?, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh .. Alice you fooled me”. I could hear roaring laugher in the background. Only then, I realized that the last joke of the day was played on me.

It is now 11.58pm. 2 minutes to midnite. I don’t have time to get back at them. Alice/Sam/Douglas, I will remember you next year.

PS: I am trying to upload photos of Phoebe, YangPo, Veronica, Ben, Douglas, Jessie and Shirlynn but for some reason I encountered an error. Maybe I will upload later.