Who Do You Think You Are Fooling

This Monday was April Fool's Day, the first one close to my regular posting time since I started this blog.  I have always liked the day, even though I rarely get any chances any more to actively participate in the tomfoolery.  My favorite part nowadays is all of the fake news stories that pop up all over the internet.  Sure, most are inconceivable, but quite a few of them are funny.  Take for instance Burger King's new all-pickle Whopper.  Yuck.  Some people actually wanted such a horrid idea to be true.  Theoretically, a burger could be ordered almost that exact way, but still.  McDonalds followed suit with a slightly more believable idea, milkshake dipping cups in four flavors.  This is to help satisfy all of the people who love to dip their fries into their milkshakes.  Never mind the unrealistic way to try and keep the product fresh (as well as cold, since I guess that is one of the qualities that people like in the dipping), many still thought this was real.  I have never tried it, as I have rarely ordered a milkshake anywhere, and I rarely eat at McDonalds either.  One of my most favorite ones was the as by a decidedly non-kid friendly website who was promoting a new beverage geared in replacing the body fluids lost during activities involving their site.  I only saw part of the ad, but I almost want to see it in its entirety.  Almost.  Now, an interesting side note.  Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man:  His Masquerade is one of the few major literary works to take place entirely on April Fool's Day, roughly mid-morning to midnight.  In it, a variety of riverboat passengers confront various figures who try to convince them into doing certain favors and/or giving them money.  Many go along with the figure, but some refuse to be taken in.  The general take on the book is that all of the figures are actually the same man (or perhaps the Devil himself!) in many disguises.  The end of the book hints at the possibility of further adventures that never arrived.  The book's failure was one of the reasons why Melville gave up writing fiction professionally for the last decades of his life.  The Confidence-Man was the last work of fiction published during his lifetime.  While he still wrote other things, such as poetry and non-fiction, he really only wrote fiction for himself or close friends and family.    Really sad, but let us end on a slightly happier note.  This Saturday, a television series returns to start its final season.  While sad, at least there will be about twenty-six last episodes before it goes off the air.