Every year I’m the butt of at least a dozen April Fool’s jokes.  The totally obvious ones I can figure out, but once a prank exhibits the slightest bit of subtlety, I’m a sucker.

Take this story from American Public Media’s Marketplace.  While driving home today I was listening to the show and started to hear about how the IRS is targeting folks deep in debt, and using the economic stimulus to send them consumer goods instead of cash:

Armed with a huge IRS database, Beverly and others like her have spent the last few months identifying taxpayers who’d be most likely to use their rebate checks to pay off debt.

Jaworsky: Someone who may be listing their house on the market as a short sale, for instance. Or students with student loans. Or screenwriters.

Then those taxpayers get special rebates.

Jaworsky: Instead of receiving that check that they were going to receive, we send it to them in the form of retail goods, in relative value to what their check would have been.

Listening to this story, I was getting pissed.  Who the hell did these people think they were?

And then I hear the host say this at the end:

RYSSDAL: Oh, c’mon, check your calendars, everybody.

Ugh. I got pwned.