D.J. Stone sits on the edge of the waterbed he inherited from his mother. Beside him on the bed is a pile of trousers. As he slips his leg into a fifth pair of pants, he laughs. His wife, Maria, has sewn the hems together on this pair as well. \u201cI stayed up all night doing it. I even made sure to do all of the dirty laundry. I didn\u2019t miss a single pair!\u201d Maria proudly states. D.J. looks at his wife adoringly, \u201cI\u2019m late to work a lot because of her pranks, but the joy they bring makes jeopardizing my job worth it.\u201d He lovingly recalls the time she put raisins in the toothpaste tube causing brown goo to ooze out when he squeezed it. He chuckles at the memory of a friend\u2019s dinner party. Maria snuck into the bathroom and melted Tootsie Rolls all over the toilet seat. \u201cLast night he got me pretty good!\u201d Maria smiles, \u201cHe served me a plate of Oreos, but he replaced all the filling with toothpaste.\u201d The love in the room is palpable.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t always this way for the Stones. After having three kids, they struggled to maintain the spark that had drawn them together. The stress that they love being parents, but they also needed something that was just for them. A year ago, on April Fool\u2019s Day, they realized they had found it. As D.J. went to turn on the kitchen faucet that day, he was sprayed with an icy blast of water. Maria had put a rubber band around the spray nozzle. A classic prank that D.J. admits he \u201cshould have seen coming.\u201d As he headed to the bedroom to change his clothes, their eyes locked. \u201cIt felt like the moment I was walking down the aisle of the church on our wedding day,\u201d Maria recalls, dabbing tears from her eyes. It was then that they realized pranks were what they needed to rekindle their romance. \u201cIt makes me feel like a kid again,\u201d D.J. says, \u201cEverything is just more fun now.\u201d They vowed on that day that they wouldn\u2019t limit their pranks to just one day a year. The couple agreed that, moving forward, every day would be April Fool\u2019s Day for them.<\/p>\n
For the first few months the Stones basked in the glow of never knowing what to expect next. \u201cWould she tape an airhorn to the wall protector, so it went off when I swung the door open? Would she cover my entire car in Post-it notes? Would the ketchup erupt when I took off the lid because she put baking soda in it? Life just became so exciting!\u201d Maria says D.J. has become much better at pranking as the months have passed. \u201cAt first he might hide my phone or make a prank call from work. But last week he printed out a picture of his head and put it inside a jar in the refrigerator! I have never felt so proud of him.\u201d Eventually the Stones realized they couldn\u2019t keep this joy to themselves. It was a gift they planned to share with everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first person I pranked was my minister at church,\u201d Maria says. She took out an ad in a local newspaper advertising a yard sale starting at 6:00 AM. \u201cI made sure it said, \u2018EARLY BIRDS WELCOME\u2019. He said his doorbell started ringing at 5:30 that morning.\u201d \u00a0Since then they\u2019ve gone on to prank neighbors, grandparents, co-workers and even complete strangers. When asked if any pranks have ever gone too far, the Stones get uncomfortable. \u201cOne of the women from my ladies\u2019 group at church stopped speaking to me,\u201d Maria says sadly. When the woman\u2019s newborn baby needed a diaper change Maria and a friend offered to do it. \u201cI took a doll and dressed it in the baby\u2019s sleeper. I pretended to trip as I came down the stairs and dropped the doll. She cried for a pretty long time.\u201d D.J. says a neighbor called the police and chased him through the neighborhood as he was putting dark paper over his door to make it look like there had been a break in. \u201cPranking doesn\u2019t come without risks. I guess nothing you have a passion for does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether they will pass the tradition on to their kids, they nod excitedly. \u201cJust last night our daughter Skye brought us ice cream sundaes. They were made from cold mashed potatoes and gravy!\u201d Maria positively beams as she speaks. \u201cOur plan is to change the world. One prank at a time. Some people may think planting chia pet seeds in a co-worker\u2019s keyboard doesn\u2019t make a difference. We plan to prove them wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
D.J. Stone sits on the edge of the waterbed he inherited from his mother. Beside him on the bed is a pile of trousers. As he slips his leg into a fifth pair of pants, he laughs. His wife, Maria, has sewn the hems together on this pair as well. \u201cI stayed up all night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8479,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875\/revisions\/8479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}