My co-workers used to talk about Nick like he was a modern-day folk hero.
“Nick is so smart, he can’t even engage with the rest of us,” they’d explain. “That’s why his desk is so far away.” “Nick is the most brilliant coder I’ve ever met.” “I heard his IQ is so high, he had to skip elementary school.”
As a woman who found confidence in my own intelligence a bit later in life, I’ve always had a weakness for smart men. I was attracted to Nick before I ever even spoke to him.
We were colleagues at a digital media company co-founded by Ashton Kutcher. I joined the team as a staff writer, Nick worked on the company’s tech side as Lead Engineer. (Swoon).
In March of 2015, I was preparing to observe my favorite secular holiday: April Fools’ Day. I asked my boss if I could plan a big stunt for our readers. He chuckled and suggested I partner with Nick (a suggestion I seem to have taken extremely literally since we’re now a married couple).
I tapped on Nick’s office door and introduced my spiel. I don’t remember the original idea, but I’ll never forget the way Nick’s eyes lit up at the thought of pranking millions of unsuspecting Facebook users. I’ve always had accomplices in my April Fools’ shenanigans, but this guy was so much more. He was ambitious, his ideas were enormous, he had the same determination to push the envelope – he took my little plan and made it colossal.
“Anything you can imagine is possible,” he grinned with delight. “Anything you think of, we can make happen.”
At first, I, the alleged creative writer, took this as a marching order to go dream up some April Fools’ pranks that he, the tech guy, could plug into code. But, then he proceeded to rattle off hilarious and spectacular ideas of his own.
We settled on his idea to prank mobile users into thinking they were getting a call from Ashton Kutcher himself. And for the next week or so, the two of us “partnered” on a project that would go on to garner media attention from national publications large and small; an April Fools’ Day prank that did, in fact, fool millions of people over the course of one, silly day that spring.
We call that our first baby.