Writing this April 2 issue, Ah Kong pauses to attend to a common remark of thousands in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and Region 1 who read Herald Express’ Daily Laborer Column.
One common note posed by readers: We’re tickled Daily Laborer entertaining us with clean and inoffensive humor for two years running, from the time Ah Kong joined Herald Express. Hoping Ah will keep up his humor.
Well now, mucho gracias for your delight. Ah admits writing a humor column is tough – as tough as carabao hide. Ah will try his best to keep it up, else I know readers will find and skewer me for the rascal that I am, if I won’t.
Arthur “Art” Buchwald, American humorist, known for his long-running column in the Washington Post, has an advice for those wanting to land a humor column job: “Humor column is one among the most difficult type of writing.”
Definitely it is. The challenge is to bleed your pen humorously to the timing of circumstances or as current events dictate.
Be that it may, Ah will keep the humor up until arthritis, gout or rheumatism stop him from grinning.
Yesterday happened to be April Fool’s Day. How this started, nobody actually has the exact idea. Nonetheless, despite not having any official recognition, April 1 has long been celebrated worldwide as the day to be foolish, or make others look foolish – to be exact.
If, during your young days, or now that you’re adults, someone played a prank on you April 1, well, well. Be happy someone did. Don’t be cantankerous and have a short fuse that someone made you look a fool. Laugh at the experience.
Not laughing over foolishness for an April 1 prank is considered a serious criminal offense.
Remember that laughter is a universal language everyone understands and chuckling is a therapy in its best form.
Bear in mind though, advise Ah’s legal counsels, Atty. Joe Molintas, city councilors Faustino Olowan and Peter Fianza that, on April 1, be foolish, or make others foolish, if you will, but bearing in mind to have the hindsight to know where the joke will end up, the foresight to know what it will do, and the insight to know when you are going too far.
So, go ahead. April 1 comes once a year, and makes us cheerFOOL, delightFOOL, beautiFOOL, wonderFOOL, colorFOOL, flavorFOOL, fruitFOOL, awFOOL, graceFOOL, helpFOOL, peaceFOOL, respectFOOL, careFOOL, playFOOL, YOUTHfool, old FOOL, etc., and, amongst all fools, happiest of fools.
On the matter of someone having made you an April 1 fool, Ah gladly says, “Man that proves you have a sense of humor and the artistry to appreciate a joke, and not being the one to make one”.
By enjoying an April 1 tomfoolery, you are that special someone who can claim that nothing is foolproof to an extremely talented fool.
It only proves that if we take all the fools out of CAR and Region 1, then there wouldn’t be any fun living in these two regions.
Say, take the case of politics. The problem with political jokes is that, too often, they get elected. How?
Being tooooo respectFOOL (CAR and Region 1 folks are by nature well-mannered) and not wanting to hurt somebody’s feeling, we vote for that political joke.
End result? The political joke wins and we, the voters, end up looking foolish.
So c’mon now, folks, be you young, middle-aged or an elder, dig from your memories how your friends made you sooooo special one April day in your lifetime. Or, not having experienced that, devise ideas and spring it on someone comes April 1 next year.
How about this one. For gentlemen out there wanting to propose to girls who stole their hearts, Ah advises you better propose on April 1. If the girls turn you down by giving you the big NO, NEVAH, NO WAY, you can console your broken hearts that you were just April fooooled.
Or, this. We turn the tables around and let unmarried women who have a crush on unmarried gentlemen be the one to propose to the males. If the males give the women the runaround by also saying NO, NEVAH, NO WAY, then the girls can curse them to their hearts delight by saying to the men, “Damn fools”.
Anyhow, a girl turned down by a man may add to her “damn fool” curse by further hissing in Tagalog,” Kung ayaw mo ako na ako ang mag-propose sa inyo nitong Abril uno, tamaan ka sana sila ng kidlat (May lightning strike you down).
But for both unmarried male or female who are frustrated on April 1, remember my dear children, never, never risk your heart to a fool, as a saying happily goes.
As for the married and the old, well, April 1 is the day when we teeter-totter between brilliance and insanity, convincing ourselves that, “Today, we are the king and queens of fools,” and combining a little of foolishness with common sense, since it’s sometimes good to be silly at a right moment.
As for Ah? I like April 1, being my entire life a complete foolishness and a joke.
