17 Clever (& Harmless) April Fools' Day Pranks To Play On Your Wife

Set a few random alarms on her phone with slightly suggestive tasks like “steam broccoli” and “order book.” It’ll be fun watching her spend a few minutes trying to remember what she was trying to remind herself to do.

On a similar note, break into her calendar and set up some non-existent appointments and reminders like “oil change” and “dental cleaning.” If you can break into her work calendar, put a Zoom meeting with her boss on the clock and invite yourself to it. She’ll panic at first, but will be relieved when you’re the only one in the meeting with her.

Arrange an assortment of various types of flours (yes, flour, not flower) outside the front door. Put a bow on one of them. Open the front door and ring the doorbell without letting your wife know that you are the one who did it. Call your wife over and let her know that a beautiful flower bouquet was just dropped off for her. You won't be wrong…

If you’ve got a bit of a crafty side, attach a row of “tennis bracelets” (actually terrycloth wristbands) on elastic or string and wrap it in a pretty box. Surprise her with the beautiful gift and let her know you saw this tennis bracelet and just had to get it for her. She’ll hate you for a second, but won’t be able to keep a straight face afterwards.

This idea from Somewhat Simple will have your wife screening phone calls and voicemails all day. Use Craigslist or Facebook (or both) to put her car up for sale, and make the price ridiculously low to ensure that there will be plenty of interest. Bonus points if you take the extra step of also writing the price on her car window. Be warned, however, that potential interested buyers may not think this is as funny as you do when they find out it’s a joke.

You'll need to be a decent actor and devise a bit of a backstory to make this one work, but if you can pull it off, it will be super effective. Go out sans spouse the night of March 31, and come back a bit later, and act maybe a bit drunk. The next morning, show your wife your “still tender” skin that now features a bad (temporary) tattoo. Bustle recommended picking one that she's sure to hate. Think: dumb cartoon, fake symbols, or a phrase with a typo in it. Once you've gotten the desired reaction, you can either reveal your trickery or continue to milk it for the rest of the day.

Switch your wife's dresser drawers around so she doesn't know where to find her underwear, socks, and jeans in the morning, suggested Somewhat Simple. As pranks go, this one is pretty gentle, but it lets you get in a bit of a joke without too much stress.

No one does ringtones anymore — if a phone isn't set to vibrate-only, the most you'll ever hear is the "Old Phone" sound. So give your wife's phone a retro makeover by changing her ringtone and notification sounds to song snippets that would have been cool circa 2008, and turn that volume all the way up. Then, recommended Somewhat Simple, be sure to call her while she's out and set alarms and alerts to go off all day.

Take this opportunity to run out a bit before breakfast and surprise your sweetie with a nice big box of Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kremes. A special fun breakfast on a random day during the week? Yes, please! But before presenting it to her, replace the donuts with a big spread of veggies and dip, suggested Design Dazzle.

(However, I strongly recommend not throwing the donuts away — just keep them stashed somewhere so you can enjoy them once the joke's over.)

Leave a note on your wife's car windshield that says, "I'm so sorry I hit your car!" along with a random name and number, suggested Mother's Niche. Better yet, get a friend in on the joke and use a fake name with their number, and have them play along by describing all the damage they did to her car. Then watch as she spends forever looking for the dings and scratches.

Change the settings on your wife's phone so that whenever she types a common word like "and," "the," "no," or "hey," it autocorrects to something else, suggested Somewhat Simple. Example replacement phrases: "April Fools'," "My spouse is amazing,” or any inside joke between the two of you.

While a drawer is a classic choice, as suggested by Bustle, the options for where to hide a fake spider (or any kind of fake insect or rodent) are limited only by your imagination. Her purse, her car seat, the shower, or the cereal cupboard are all guaranteed to elicit the desired reaction from your darling arachnophobe.

Get recordings of a baby saying a simple word like "mama." Hide a bluetooth speaker somewhere near the baby. Then play the recording from your phone, but only when your wife isn't looking, and get really excited when it happens. Do this several times throughout the day, making it seem like only you are seeing the baby talk.

If you place clear tape over the remote control sensor, your TV can't pick up the signal, and your wife will have no idea why it isn't turning on. Parenting magazine recommends this prank for both TV remotes and gaming console remotes, and it works on your computer mouse, too.

Phones are the perfect target for an April Fools' prank because they take up so much of our attention. This idea from Buzzfeed requires a bit of effort on your part, but it will definitely pay off. Here's how it works: Take a screenshot of your wife's phone's home screen. Then move all her home screen apps onto a new screen. Then set that screenshot as the home screen wallpaper. Now when she tries to tap on her apps, nothing will happen.

Convince her your parents are coming to stay with you... for an entire month. You’ll really have to stick with the story for a little while (come up with background details, etc.), but her ensuing panic will be worth it.

Tell her you did the laundry as a favor, but something went wrong and her favorite shirts are now small enough to fit your toddler. Wait until she’s really fuming until you tell her the truth. (She probably won’t ask you to do laundry for a bit.)