"Fool me once....fool's a fool again"

or it was something along those lines, George Bush's absurd attempt to quote the old adage.

I love April Fool's Day, it's right up there with Halloween for me. The first April Fool's I remember is when I was about 7, my brother 5, and my mom prepared a special snack for us to take to school. She prepared much of it right in front of us, and we salivated while she slowly stirred a pot of melting chocolate on the stove. She then dipped grahm crackers in the chocolate, added some mint flavoring on top, and smushed them together like sandwiches. "Don't eat them until lunch, now" she admonished, then kissed our cheeks and held open the door. Of course we unwrapped those heavenly looking squares the moment we were out of her sight, and greedily thrusted them into our mouths with chocolate smeared fingers.

"Gross!", my brother cried, dropping his treat and staring up at me in bewildered dismay. I slowly withdrew the concoction from my mouth and examined it more closely. "Toothpaste!" I screamed, and then I whirled around and gazed up at the living room window. There was mom with a big grin on her face, looking down at us in triumph. Baking chocolate, Crest, and graham crackers. A simple recipe for instilling a lifelong love of mischief in one's child, ready in 30 minutes or less.