After being gone for nearly 10 months, friends from back home are starting to forget about the kind of person that I am. Which is a good thing. When people start to let their guard down, it makes April Fool's Day -- my favorite day -- like taking candy from a baby.

Kirby was the obvious target this year. She's one of my best friends from UVa, but I can't even count how long it's been since I last saw her. She left to study abroad in Florence my last semester of college; I left for Germany before she came home. We don't really keep in contact that often, and she doesn't read my blog. All of these factors added up to a definitive conclusion: Kirby would take the bait ... hard.

Though Skype would be useless for this prank, since an incoming call from the Internet shows up on a person's cell phone as some crazy number like 000000000000, the flattening world did aid and abet my tomfoolery. That's because of my trusty U.S. cell phone, which -- gasp -- works like clockwork from halfway across the globe, and shows up as a normal, ho hum call from your buddy Billy. I never make calls from it, because it costs an arm and a leg per minute. But cracking myself up is worth its weight in gold, and I've never been one to let financial constraints hamper me from messing with someone.

"Hi, this is Kirby..."

Damnit Kirby! Can't you see that I'm trying to trick you into thinking that I'm back in C-ville? Answer your phone!

That happened the first two times I tried calling. I got all the people sitting around the table at the Three Black Catz to provide background chatter and everything, since I was "calling from a booth at The Virginian," but she wasn't pulling through on her end of the deal. She wasn't picking up. It was 10 o'clock, the clock was ticking, and I began to rationalize in my head that even if it passed the threshold into April 2 in Belgrade, it would still be April 1 in the region where I was playing the joke, so it wouldn't be dirty pool if I didn't hear back within the next two hours.

The third time was a charm.

"Hello?"

"Kirby!" I haven't changed my number in years, so I figured that I wouldn't need to say anything but that for her to start freaking out.

"Who is this?"

"Bayless."

"Who?"

"Bayless."

"Lewis?"

"No, Kirby, it's BAYLESS."

For someone who was "best friends" with this girl, as I had been telling everyone involved in the background noise help, she sure was having a hard time registering who it was. Eyebrows were raising all around me, I could just feel it.

"Buh -- BAYLESS! Hey! What are you doing??"

Enthusiasm. Perfect. The guard was down.

"Kirby, come to The Virginian!"

"NO WAY! OH MY GOD! I'm in the library -- I'LL BE THERE IN TWO MINUTES!"

I hung up, and starting spasming in laughter from my seat on a bench in Belgrade, which is way more than two minutes from Kirby's seat in Alderman.

"She bought it! Hahahahahaha."

"You're terrible!" Helena, a Brit from Leeds said. "You're taking the piss out of this poor girl."

I honestly started to feel bad about it about three seconds later. Girls are a little more emotional about these types of things than guys, and immediately the thought of her crying upon hearing this was all a huge, cruel joke popped into my head. The girl was leaving the library, running for all I knew, to a bar on The Corner where her long lost friend was going to be waiting for her in a booth. And that friend was actually sitting in the heart of Serbia, laughing it up.

I started to call her back, and even hit the send button, before Helena cut it off: "You've done it now, so you might as well hang up." I slammed the phone shut.

Lo and behold, it took her just a little over two minutes to call back.

"You're a s*** head."

"April Fool's!!"

"You're a s*** head."

"I'm sorry!" I said, barely able to squeeze in the words between huge bellows of laughter.

"I came all the way here, and it was only right as I reached the door that I remembered it was April 1st. You're a s*** head."

Luckily, Kirby is a really cool girl and took it in stride. She wasn't mad; she actually laughed. And she made me promise to buy her a ton of flowers if I really do come through Charlottesville on my way home. After such a cruel joke, it's the least I could do. I'm sorry, Kirby. And thankyou, too.