I would like to tell my mother in law that it was all just one big April’s Fools joke that we are taking her four granddaughter 2,000 miles away to live, but she would know that I was lying because she was there while we loaded every last possession of theirs onto our truck.

I would like to think that it was LG’s April’s Fools joke on me when after we loaded his car onto the truck trailer and saw the flat tire he had just let the air out instead of admitting that he never went to get his tires rotated after I had asked him too.

I would like to think that it was a big April’s Fools joke on myself when I realized that we could have e-mailed ourselves all of our maps to hotels and such instead of printing them out and losing the papers requiring a last minute trip to the library.

I would like to think that it was God’s April’s Fools joke on us when we had to load and reload our car onto the trailer four times because we couldn’t drive the car onto the trailer straight. There was also no way that LG and I in our limited truck driving experience could figure how to accurately back the thing up.

I would like to think that it was the Kitty Bear’s April’s Fools joke on us when she clawed at my skin and bit into my flesh repeatedly while trying to administer her tranquilizer, but it wasn’t a joke. Not at all.

I would like to think that it was Abigail’s April’s Fools joke on me that when I finally got out of town at 2 p.m. instead of the goal time of 8 a.m. and was 45 minutes onto the interstate that the dog wasn’t in the car. She had let him out of the car at the quick stop at the grocery store unbeknown to me.  And it was Faye’s April’s Fools joke to ask me about how Olive was doing, just to rub it in that I would have gotten all the way to our first hotel or gas stop before I realized the major mishap.

I would like to think it was the vet’s April’s Fool’s joke when this crazy lady was having a nervous breakdown in the office over her Pomeranian named Itsy Bitsy. I guess this joke was a good one because it made my previous crying in the car look very very mild. And it also made me want to start packing some Valium in my purse for such occasions. The lady need someone to slap her silly. Her dog was just fine. My dog on the other hand had probably been hit by a car finding her way back to our house across four lanes of traffic.

I would like to think it was our neighbor’s April’s Fools joke when the called to tell me they had thought we left our dog behind on purpose because they had found her howling on our front porch, but it was such a relief to know they had found her.

I would like to think it was my hood Knoxville neighborhood’s April’s Fools joke that random people were pillaging everything they could take from our yard within an hour after we left town. Probably while I was just down the street at the vet because it was now 4 p.m. and I was really finally on my way.

I would like to think that it was the State of Tennessee’s one last April’s Fools joke on us when I got to about the same exact spot I had gotten to on the first trip only to be stuck in standstill traffic for three hours. LG was stuck at the front of the line and in all the drama I had gone back to town to take care of, he only ended up arriving at the hotel an hour ahead of us because he had sat in stand still traffic for 5 hours.

I would like to think that it was my own April’s Fools joke on myself that after our whole first day of traveling, we only made it four hours into our 36 hour trip.

But even though it was April’s Fools day, all of this was true, and although hilarious in hindsight, not so laugh worthy at the time.

The silver lining was on my trip to the vet with the dog, I got a better tranquilizer for the cat. It was a liquid form that actually worked until about 1/2 hour before arrival at our hotel in Kentucky when she started going crazy once again in her cat carrier.

By far my most entertaining April’s Fools Day e v e r. And I can only say that because our dog was just fine. Just two little spots on the back of her legs that warrant some neosporin and an antibiotic.

And the dog may as well be on an antibiotic because the baby is too, for a pretty massive UTI, which kept her real nice and happy sitting in her carseat sick all day.

The miracle of it all. I have not yet been locked away. I was actually laughing at how absurd our family can be throughout the day.

And I believe God was laughing too as he thought of all the hard times I have had for the last 8 years in Tennessee and this was such a fitting closure.

Smooth sailing from here on out, I am sure of it.

Why?

Because April’s Fools was yesterday and we barely managed to cross the state-line.