Foolery vanisheth

 (In which the Blob once again escapes the Sportsball corral. You know the drill.)

Today is April 1, which used to be a day for gags, practical jokes and general seventh-grade boy tomfoolery. Hey, look, your barn door's open! April fool! Hey, didja hear the cafeteria puts catfood in its meatloaf? April fool! Omigod, you've got a HUGE booger hanging out of your  left nostril! April fool!

Or how about this one: Hey, look! There's a picture on the internet of Kristi Noem's husband wearing ginormous fake boobs!

Oh, wait. Turns out that one's real.

Which of course is the whole problem with April Fool's Day here in 2026.

See, America, and the world in general, has become such a galactically bizarre place that fooling people with tomfoolery has become passe. All those outlandish pranks we used to pull on April Fool's Day pale in comparison to simple reality now.

Like, you know, Kristi Noem's husband being revealed as an alleged cross-dresser with ginormous fake boobs.

I admit this did sound like an April Fool's joke to me, initially. Raised a skeptical eyebrow. Thought it was social media doing its usual social media thing, a sort of an enhanced version of little Joey putting fake vomit on little Susie's seat in math class.

Only later did it become clear it was real vomit.

Which is a shame, sort of, because it means foolery of the April 1 sort is vanishing because, seriously, how can it top Kristi Noem's hubby and his Hindenburg mammaries?  Just when you think you've seen it all, Bryon Noem pops up on your feed to say, "Nah, bro. Not even close."

(In all fairness, it's hard to blame him. I mean, if you were married to Cosplay Rambolina, you, too, might occasionally get the urge to slip into a sleek little Prada number and dab some Chanel No. 5 behind your ears. Especially if you kept hearing about her cattin' around with that sorry-ass Corey Lewandoski.)

(And how rich is all this, by the by? A woman who thinks drag queens are evil sorcerers forcing our children to wear bouffant wigs and stilletto heels has a husband who's ... a drag queen? Beauty.)

Anyway ...

Anyway, Bryon Noem's just the tip of the iceberg of April Fool's-like weirdness these days, beginning of course with our Fearless Leader and his clown-car cabinet. Hey, didja hear our Secretary of Defense is a former Fox talking head and religious fanatic who likes to style himself the Secretary of War? Didja hear our Educashon Secretary came from the educashonal world of pro wrestling? Didja hear the head of Health and Human Services is a heroin burnout and conspiracy kook?

Or how about the 23-year-old former stock boy who's in charge of the anti-terrorism wing of the Department of Homeland Security? Or the new head of DHS himself, a former MMA fighter and all-around loon?

April fool!

Or, you know, NOT April fool.

Now, it must be pointed out here that there is a preponderance of leg-pulling fakery going on out there on this day, but more and more actual human behavior eclipses it. There's an entire genre in some news outlets devoted to the real-life adventures of the doofuses collectively known as Florida Man, for instance. And of course the real-life adventures of Fearless Leader himself pretty much could all be passed off as April Fool's jokes, they're so completely off the rails.

My favorite, and a lot of Americans' favorite, is about F.L. gifting his cabinet members with Florsheim shoes he declared the best ever made in the entire history of shoemaking, or some such thing. None of them were sized right, apparently; Secretary of State Marco Rubio's pair were so large they looked like literal clown shoes. Yet Rubio and the others all wore them because they were apparently afraid not to.

"Oh, come on, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "We're no April fools. You can't get us with that one. I suppose next you're gonna tell us the President's going to start naming stuff after himself, or getting others to do it for him, like he's Gov. William J. Le Petomane or someone.*

(* -- Gratuitous "Blazing Saddles" reference)

Well, actually ...