April Fools Pranks to Do at Home and at Work

April Fools' Day is the one day a year when a fake cockroach in the sugar bowl counts as a public service. These pranks are harmless, quick to set up and suit grown-ups at home or at work.

The classics that jump out

The snake in a can. A crisp tube on the kitchen counter, with a spring snake inside. Leave it where someone will reach for a snack. How to set it up.

The spider box. A small wooden box with a sliding lid, left on a desk with a note: "for you". The spider does the rest.

Pranks with fake bugs

• The sugar bowl. One realistic fake cockroach on top of the sugar.
• The cereal box. Two or three tucked into the top of the box, for the first person up.
• The lampshade. A fake roach inside a lampshade casts a silhouette the size of a hand when the light goes on.
• The shoe. One in the toe of a work shoe.
• The keyboard. A cockroach under a key's edge on a colleague's keyboard, or one sitting on the mouse.

Fake bugs are cheap enough to use by the handful, and a pack of fifty covers the whole office.

Pranks to do at home

• Googly eyes on everything in the fridge.
• Swap the cereal into the wrong boxes.
• Fake snacks — the snake in a can again — on the coffee table.
• Decision coin dinner: announce that dinner will be decided by coin. It always says no.

Pranks to do at work

Keep office pranks quick, harmless and easy to clean up:

• Mouse tape — a small piece of tape over the bottom of a colleague's mouse.
• The spider box on the desk of the person who borrows things.
• A bug in the stapler or the stationery drawer.
• An out-of-office reply for someone who is sitting at their desk — with their permission, of course.

More office pranks for coworkers.

The rules of a good prank

1. Harmless. Nothing broken, nothing wet, nothing that costs anyone money or work.
2. Kind. The target should laugh too. Avoid real phobias and anyone with a heart condition.
3. Quick to undo. Everything back to normal in a minute.
4. Over by noon. In Britain, tradition says pranks must end at midday — anyone pranking after that is the fool.

Where April Fools' Day came from

Nobody knows for certain. The favourite theory links it to France switching to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, when New Year moved from spring to 1 January, and anyone still celebrating in spring was mocked as an April fish — poisson d'avril. French children still stick paper fish on people's backs. Other theories point to older spring festivals of mischief. By the 1700s the day was well established in Britain.

The most famous prank of all is probably a 1957 British television report showing a family harvesting spaghetti from trees.

Gag gifts for adults.