Belated April Fool's

I used to work in the office of this place that gave horseback riding lessons. Every year on April Fool's Day, the "guys", as we called them, would come running in with some crazy scheme trying to convince us of something. This year, we were having none of it, we were ready.

That afternoon, we got a frantic call from them out in the field, where they were bringing the horses back in from grazing. "Get the supervisor, one of the horses just started going crazy jumping all over the place and I think it's dead. We need to call the vet immediately!"

I put him on hold, kinda roll my eyes and grab my supervisor. "It's Jamie*. He says one of the horses is dead, and he wants to talk to you."

She rolls her eyes too. I had worked there for three years, and never had a horse died while I was there, period, let alone while I was working on April Fool's Day. We try to look out the window, but can't see as far as he would be. She gets on the phone.

"Alright Jamie, we'll be RIGHT THERE. To see the dead horse. Jamie, I'm not calling the vet. If I call the vet he will charge us. It isn't funny to joke about this kind of thing"

He pleads with her to take him seriously, and she finally hangs up. He calls back immediately. "You really, seriously, need to call the vet right now." We decide he's been persistent enough, and the supervisor goes out to see what's going on. Sure enough, the freaking horse was dead. I think it had some sort of aneurysm - I can't remember, exactly. Either way, there was nothing we could have done. It's pretty rare that something like that would happen - old age, maybe, but this was completely unexpected.

As horrible as it was, I don't think anyone could believe that of all the days of the year for this to happen, it was the one where no one would possibly believe it. And I think it taught the guys not to play wolf next time.