Vince Beatty thought he would play a funny and obvious April fool’s prank on his wife, Shannon. Vince had a lawyer friend draw up some fake divorce papers that he could give to Shannon when she got home from work, and of course, share a good laugh. Unfortunately for Vince, the prank backfired in the worst way.
“I came home and handed her the papers with a smile on my face,” said Vince. “She asked, ‘what’s this, and then proceeded to read the document very carefully. She never broke a smile. She got to the end, looked at me and said, ‘this has been a long time coming, and I am so happy you had the courage to do this. We are both going to be happier.’”
Beatty was shell-shocked. “I had to have turned white,” said Beatty. “I thought everything was great in our marriage, and clearly, I was way off. At that point, what can I do? I didn’t want to look like an even bigger idiot and tell her the whole thing was a joke. So, I had to play along and act like I was serious. I kept hoping she would give me a ‘gotcha’ but it never came.”
The Beattys have yet to talk to the kids about it, but Vince did start sleeping in the basement. “We know the kids are going to start asking questions, so we are working out what and how we are going to tell them,” said Vince. “Right now, the plan is that we wait until it is a little warmer and tell them over ice cream. We think it will just go more smoothly that way.” Vince says the ailing couple has yet to make tough decisions regarding who gets what, but he will probably let her have the Stapleton home. “I want the kids to still go to school here in Stapleton and have their friends,” said Vince. “Plus, now that I am a single dude, I can probably do better than Stapleton.”
The process has taught Vince an important lesson. “April Fool’s pranks should be reserved for those that are not close to you, or have any real importance in your life. Also, before you pull a prank, really flush out the potential consequences. That way, you can understand every possible outcome.”
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