April Fool's Day calls for celebration ... and cynicism.

The more comedically inclined take pleasure in a day devoted to pranking and put-ons, but the rest of us must be on our guard today. Even the most somber stories of deaths in the family or grim diagnoses should be taken with many a grain of salt.

A few unfortunate souls have even been cursed with an April Fool's birthday, which basically means they are the brunt of more jokes than everyone else.

Doreen Putnam of Skaneateles once celebrated the April 1 birthday of her nephew from Michigan by presenting him with a fully decorated cake made out of cardboard. After singing “Happy Birthday,” Putnam and her family watched as her nephew struggled to slice the first piece.

“He was perplexed and a bit frustrated until we all began to grin,” Putnam said.

A closer look revealed the cake's actual composition to the nephew, who was rewarded with a real cake once he realized that he had been hoodwinked.

The harassment of an April Fool's birthday has frequently hit Sandy Hatfield, of Locke, who was also given a cardboard cake by her friends at a recent birthday celebration.

“Cameras up, candles lit, knife in hand, hating to deface my pals' handiwork, I began to slice the first piece which would obviously be mine, but the knife would hardly budge,” Hatfield said. “It was skillfully decorated cardboard.”

Other April Fool's Day pranks are not performed on the basis of an unfortunately timed birthday, but their skill and wit are nonetheless not without humor. The best gags play upon someone's weakness: Fear of snakes, willingness to help strangers and pure gullibility make people easy targets for the pranksters in us all.