You’ve been planning it for months. You’ve ordered the supplies. You’ve drawn up the schematics. You’ve sent away for the Bolivian Fire Ant Itching Powder. Everything is going perfectly to plan.

But timing, as they say, is everything.

You thought that a hilarious “You’ve got cancer!” card would be just the thing to give your aunt a chuckle. And it would have, had she not been diagnosed with leukemia this very morning.

And how were you supposed to know that your co-worker’s son died of a poisonous snakebite? You paid fifty damn dollars for that gigantic life-like rubber python and damned if you were going to see that money go to waste.

And you surely never would have imagined that those few ounces of cocaine you stashed in your brother’s pocket would just so happen to fall out onto the courtroom floor during his DWI hearing. So what if it’s his third offense? That’s the joke!

And it never even occurred to you that your buddy who just got home from Iraq might not have appreciated a case of firecrackers exploding in his mailbox. Lighten up, dude! Who doesn’t love a little pyrotechnics show every now and then?

What started out as a whimsical, frolicsome day has spiraled down into a mishmash of anguish, discomfort, and multiple restraining orders. And there’s no one to blame but yourself.

So if you want to suck at life, play a tasteless April Fool’s Day prank. Twenty-seven pending lawsuits can only mean one thing: the joke’s on you.