The last official April Fool's joke I pulled was during my junior year of college. I haven't pulled any since because that one, um, didn't go over so well.

I had just switched majors and, to break up my schedule of English classes, English classes, and more English classes, I decided to take a music class.

My music class for the first semester was difficult, but rewarding. I learned how to compose, and by the end of the semester, I had composed a finished piece of piano music with three variations. Not bad at all, considering I can't play the piano - at least not with both hands.

Second semester's class was more difficult and less rewarding. Now that we had basic composition skills, we had to learn to compose in church modes. Each mode has its own set of rules - you can only jump to certain intervals, you have to start and end on certain notes, and everything has to match up with the cantus firmi, which is the main melody you compose around.

It was torture. I had an easier time learning Japanese. The one thing that redeemed the class was the professor, who had also taught the first semester class. He had an excellent sense of humor and understood how painful it was for us to try and learn this stuff, so he was very good about keeping the mood light and bantering back and forth with us.

So. Enter April Fool's Day. Myself and a few other students figured that if any professor could appreciate a good joke in the spirit of the holiday, it would be him.

We came into class early and wrote a farewell note on the front chalkboard from one of the church modes. "I can't bear to cause you any more pain, so I'm leaving. You'll all be better off without me," kind of thing. We then took all the chalk and, in one of those giggly last-minute panics, dumped it all under my chair and threw my sweatshirt over it.

And then, we waited.

Other students came in, saw the note, and either shook their heads or laughed. When our professor came in, he saw the note and almost choked.

"Who . . . who did this?" he stammered. "Who's responsible for this?"

My friends and I exchanged looks. This was not going the way we had anticipated.

He went to pick up a piece of chalk and noticed that there wasn't any. "What the . . . Where's all the chalk? Did you guys take the chalk?"

We all stared at the floor, not quite sure what to do at this point.

"Okay, I'm going to leave the room, and when I come back, I expect the chalkboard to be erased and all the chalk to be back where it's supposed to be." He looked around the room. "Why are you guys doing this, anyway? What made you do this today?"

Me, in a really, really small voice: "Because it's April Fool's Day?"

You have never seen a man look so relieved in his life. He almost fell over. "Oh! Oh! Okay! Thank God! I thought you guys had finally gotten fed up with the church modes and were gonna walk out or something! Oh, okay!"

Poor guy. We thought he'd pick up on the fact that it was April Fool's Day right away, but he thought we'd all snapped. Apparently church modes have a tendency to inspire odd or violent behavior in even the most dedicated music student.

So please, dear readers, joke responsibly this April Fool's Day. Remember, jokes are supposed to be funny or silly, not nearly give someone a heart attack.