Thursday, August 5, 2010

Is Your Refrigerator Running?

A sad thought popped into my mind the other day. I will never again be able to make an anonymous prank phone call. Technological advances like caller ID and *69 make it too risky. I would be mortified if someone called me back to ask if a middle-aged mother of four had just demanded the release of Prince Albert from his can.

When my sister and I were teenagers, we were Queens of the Prank Call. We were not mean or crude. Oh, no. We prided ourselves on our cleverness and professionalism. Our goal was not to humiliate or scare, but to elicit good-natured laughs from the other end. Once, a victim actually chuckled, "Good one!" We floated on Cloud 9 for a week after that high praise.

Our creative process was simple. We'd flip through names in the phonebook until we came across something unusual, then plan our spiel. For example, we found the name Sixberry. We called the residence, I asked for Mr. Sixberry, and then kindly introduced myself as Mary, a consultant for the Sesame Street Children's Television Workshop. I continued, In an effort to improve our broadcast segments involving mathematics, I am calling this evening to inquire whether adding one berry . . . to five berry . . . would indeed result in . . . SIXBERRY. Click.

Those were the days. Candy tasted sweeter and prank phone calls seemed funnier.



Dinner last night: husband cooked! tater tot casserole





12 comments:

Mother Mayhem said...

My sister, cousin, and I were always a radio station getting people to rate a record. Everything was fine until someone on our grandparent's party line ratted us out. LOL

Your husband cooks? Gasp.

Heather~sheaaa6 said...

Ha.....that sixberry call is funny =] lol

My younger brothers use to knock on our neighbors doors and run.......little rascals......the neighbors would call my mom and rat them out every time. =]

Yay for husbands that cook. =] Mine cooked the other night mac and cheese and cut up hotdogs. Kids said Mommy never makes this....hmmmm well at least not for supper. =]

Jess Webb said...

Hi Kim! LOVE the Sixberry prank call - good job on coming up with that one! :)

I never did prank calls, but always enjoy hearing a good story about one, and love that you were nice and not mean about it too. ;)

Meathead said...

HA! That's a good one!
My prank calls were not so inventive. More often than not we would just keep calling the same number over and over again without saying anything until the person lost their mind.
Fun times...?

Alexis AKA MOM said...

Hehe I love that you girls put some great thoughts into it. Along with the neighbor girls I remember doing the same calls but not that funny, really you guys had it down!

Karen M. Peterson said...

Oh I miss prank calls!

One night, we were having a slumber party and angered the managers at more than one super market when we called to inquire whether they had Olive Oil in a bottle, and to warn that they better let her out before Popeye found out.

Those were the days!

Dianna@KennedyAdventures said...

SQUEAL!
@Mother Mayhem will now have to explain WHAT a party line is -- cause I KNOW that there are people here who have no idea what she is talking about.

Sigh .... let's figure out how we can make prank calls again.

Helene said...

Hahaha, that Sixberry one is pretty funny! My friends and I used to do prank calls all the time, usually pretending we were DJ's at the local radio station hosting a contest. People didn't fall for it, most of the time.

Joey Lynn Resciniti said...

That's a great prank call! See the technology is taking something from us, there can't be any prank texting now can there?

Karen Mortensen said...

I remember making prank calls in Japenses(?) Talk about not knowing who I was calling.

motheroad said...

What the heck is a tater tot casserole?

Kim said...

I try not to ask too many questions when my husband offers to cook dinner. All I know is it's the only casserole he cooks. And I think it has tater tots in it. Maybe some hamburger?