High school prank...

Yesterday morning, we woke up to find our teen-ager on her cellphone, seated at the dining-room table. Her friends were apparently called by the Menlo Atherton High School office: no school was for the first two periods of the day.

She immediately suspected a prank, but I wasn't sure -- even though the message didn't make much sense:

This is an important message regarding a serious electrical failure at Menlo-Atherton High School. Due to the potential hazards this morning's events may induce, school has been temporarily postponed until third period.

(We got our call maybe 15 minutes later.) It sounded realistic, but electrical failure?

She called the office, and they didn't answer the phone. I nevertheless advised her to go there and see; if school really were closed, it wouldn't be so bad to bike back home, or to cruise over to Borrone's for a hot chocolate or something.

I called her at the end of the day. "Was there school today for the first two periods?"

"Yes; it was a prank," she told me. It was entertaining to read the story in the Mercury News this morning.

Only in America...

Addendum

If you look closely at the link above, you'll note that the author is with the Daily News Group -- i.e., the Redwood City Daily News and its siblings. The San Mateo Daily Journal has this story.