April 1 is one of the best days to get overlooked. It’s a time of celebration, togetherness and other general comments about holidays. Most importantly, April 1 is about pulling the best practical joke you can.

How April Fool’s Day, or AFD as I like to call it, started, I don’t know or care. All I care about is seizing the opportunity to pull pranks on people and get away with it. Woo-hoo! If that isn’t living the American dream, then I don’t want to know what it is.

Before you can live in the moment of the day, you have to do some considerable planning, so you might have to put your homework off for the week. If your professors have problems with this, then they don’t understand the meaning of AFD.

Planning AFD is going to take some creativity, but it can be done if you plan far enough in advance and it’s always better with help.

One of the most important components of AFD is a video camera. Having your joke captured on video will be great material to show future employers. You can show them your multitasking, prioritizing and creativity abilities. If you have employed others for help, you can show them your ability to manage people.

The first part of the planning is picking your prey. You could pick on someone smaller than you, not as smart as you, etc. Or you could-and I recommend-hit for the fences and nail someone unexpected.

If you think someone is plotting to whack you, you might want to start making alliances.

Alliances are made, and the prey is chosen. There are multiple jokes you can pull, so choose wisely. Turning the clocks ahead/behind, putting their hands in warm water while they are sleeping, changing all of their passwords to some obscenity, or my personal favorite, antiquing.

In case you aren’t sure of antiquing, you have a handful of flour, and throw it as hard as you can at someone’s face. The person won’t be very happy, and it’s hilarious.

With the plan now in effect, it’s time to hype it up. Talking to this person a week before AFD to let them know it’s coming. Hyping up the prank before it happens will add shock value to the prank and scare the feces out of them, seriously. You want to make the hype so bad they’re afraid to sleep the night before.

You’re going to have to pick the right scene for the prank. Pulling it in public might be funnier, but depending on the prank, there might be repercussions. If you live in a residence halls and have close friends around, the hall might be a great spot. Wherever you prepare your attack, make sure the cameraman knows.

It’s time to pull the prank. You might want to wear diapers because it’s going to be bladder-busting funny.

One thing to remember is to expect a rebuttal. It’s on. If they strike a rebuttal against you and it succeeds, leave it after that. The longer the war happens, the worse it will get. Sound familiar?

The prank is supposed to be fun. You’ve humiliated your prey, now get ready for their attack. One piece of advice, make sure you let the person know you weren’t the only one involved in the prank.

Happy AFD and happy hunting!