Good Prank, Naivity or Am I Just An Idiot?

My dad is the king of April Fools jokes. Every year he would come up with a fabulous one and I just never seemed to catch on. So, this year in the spirit of April Fools Day, I thought that I would share one of his greatest. Now, keep in mind that I really was old enough to have caught on to this one sooner. However, I may just be the most gullible person on the planet.

One morning our parents came up to us with a frantic look in their eyes and told us what they had just seen on the news. Apparently, some person made an attempt at releasing a snake back into the wild by dumping it into the sewer system. This snake had then gone to fight its way through the city pipes and had appeared in the homes of several people in the Salt Lake Valley (the more I type, the more I can not believe that I believed this. Oh, well.)

At one residence, it had popped up and eaten a small dog. At another, this time the home of a little old lady, it had come up while she was using the potty and bit her on her fragile little behind. Oh, did those stories get to me! I immediately took my little toy poodle and locked him safely away inside of his kennel. We ran around the house securing the other pets safely into rooms without plumbing. I called all of my friends and told them to tape down their toilet seats so that they could spare their behinds from the wrath of the sewer snake.

It gets worse.....

My parents, seeing that they had completely duped us all, carried this prank a little further. They came to us moments later and said that the news released a broadcast that if anyone was able to capture the snake and keep it until animal services arrived, they would be given a cash reward.

Well, dollar signs appeared in each of our eyes. We knew that if anyone could catch that slithery beast it could be us... The Griner Gang. My brothers went and fashioned make shift fishing poles using serving tongs and dental floss. For bait, they tied pieces of hot dogs and lunch meat to the ends of the end of the floss. We all spent the next 30 minutes atleast huddled around the toilet flushing these tasty treats in hopes that we could entice the serpent into our bathroom. Can you imagine that. Seeing 5 kids fishing in the toilet.

I don't remember if my parents took pictures or not. For my sake I hope that they didn't. The mental image is more than enough for me! When they finally did start to feel bad that their children were trying to earn money by sewer surfing, they told us that it was just a prank. I think that several mintutes passed before we realized what they were saying.

As humilated as I felt that I had taken part in the fishing expedition, I felt even more stupid as I called all of my friends back (who obviously had already figured out that it was April Fools Day) and told them that I was indeed mistaken.

As often as I claim that I have learned my lesson and wont fall for another obviously stupid story that couldn't possibly be true, I turn around and fall for another one. So you tell me, are they good pranks, and I just naive or am I just an idiot?