April Foolishness

“There’s no fool like an April fool,” Mum was fond of telling me on this day — April 1 — and she would know better, for today was the day that she bore down on the stirrups, applying just the right amount of pressure below the belt, as it 'twere, to propel Yours Truly — Dooley® — out the chute feet first, for a proper dismount — upright and saluting! “Crikey, he stuck the landing!” cried the attending midwife, to which Dad replied, “Look at the tallywhacker on the young Olympian!” We'll suppose that Mum had expected to hear something on the order of “It’s a boy!” but apparently liked the plucky enthusiasm displayed in the birther’s room and celebrated by baking a cake when she arrived home — Mrs. M.V. Filbert’s mayonnaise cake! ’Twould become something of an annual birthday tradition at the Johns household. “The bun’s out of the oven, the cake’s on the 'sill,” Mum would say, and we’d all have laugh, though I wasn’t sure why. “Eat your bloody mayonnaise cake, Dooley,” Dad would say, and so I would, helping myself to as much chocolatine goodness as I could stumoch. Blessings from the Birthday Boy, Mum and Dad. Bravo, Ladyship Filbert!