Santos Inocentes

Today is the "Día de los Santos Inocentes" (innocent saints), which is I guess our equivalent of April Fool's Day. A day to play jokes on people, to make them "innocent"--in the sense of naive. It has an interesting variation, though, that's not a custom on April Fool's. If you ask someone to borrow something, and when they give it to you you say "santos inocentes," you can keep what they gave you (the joke being you weren't going to give it back.) So my mother announces first thing this morning that it's Santos Inocentes, and I lost all chance to fool anyone. I always gave back what I asked for on this day anyway, I felt too guilty.