Riding the Wave, 45. The Joke's on Us.

Right on time for the Spanish April Fool's day, Pfizer announced that they won't be able to move the next shipment of the vaccine to Spain today at the prescribed hour because of logistical problems; it'll arrive tomorrow. It sounds like a typical joke for today, but this is not the best time for an inocentada. 

Today is the day of the Holy Innocents, the Santos Inocentes. It is Spain's, and Latin America's, April Fool's. No ones knows the exact reason for how a supposed massacre that is more of a legend than history, gave rise to a day of practical jokes. I have read that it is the last remnant of the Roman Saturnalia, which concerned changing around roles, and having the world topsy-turvy at the winter solstice. Also, in Spanish, the word "innocent" refers to someone who is simple-minded, and will believe any lie or story as solid truth. 

So, today, the tradition is to cut out a little man out of paper, a monigote, or llufe, and stick it on someone's back in a way that they aren't aware of it, making that person into an inocente who doesn't understand what is going on. It has also been the tradition to make practical jokes. Newspapers and news programs once used to do that. There was also a television show that would play a practical joke on someone famous, filming the entire process with hidden cameras. But this year, it just wasn't easy to film anything that seemed natural, and fake news has put paid to news jokes. 

Some jokes in the news in previous years, were that 3,724 ostriches were running rampant through Ponferrada after a truck carrying the birds was knocked over. Now, with the pandemic, we've seen all sorts of animals running rampant through our streets, and it's not much of a joke. Another one, very obviously made up, was that Boris Yeltsin was really a Spaniard from Ronda. Or that a tax would be charged on food items to make up for all the recipes pirated on internet from TV shows. That one would be more believable, especially ever since the government has actually instituted a tax on all sorts of electronic stuff on the assumption that they will be used for internet piracy. But, of late, those jokes have fallen out of fashion.

After all, is there anything crazier than reporting that the bankruptcy and reality star mogul, Donald Trump, is President of the U.S.? Or that Great Britain is no longer within the E.U. and we now need a passport for a weekend in London? Or that New Year's Eve is cancelled? Or that Russia has named a vaccine Sputnik? The entire world has gotten topsy-turvy in the last four or five years. There can no longer be a practical joke that would make us laugh and say, "That's funny! It can't be true!" So, instead of searching the news stories for their usual jokes, we'd better find ourselves looking over our shoulder, to make sure a monigote hasn't been hung there. Or tasting the salt to make sure it's salt and not sugar. This year, the inocentadas are going to be personal.  

Oh, didn't you hear? Everyone has to wear yellow on December 28th from now on, to prove they're not inocentes. 

Life continues. Stranger than fiction.