So earlier in the week, we talked about phones back in the old days.
One of the advantages back then was no caller ID.
Which made it much easier to do prank phone calls.
It was boring to do the ones our parents told us about.
Do you have Prince Albert in a can?
Is your refrigerator running?
LAME. Lame lame lame lame lame.
When I was 14 I spent the night with my best friend, Hollie. Thanksgiving week, which meant a whole week off from school.
Hollie had a cassette tape recorder that I coveted with all my heart. I had already asked my parents (repeatedly) for my own. Was hoping I'd get it as a Christmas present.
Ha, back in those days those WERE our electronics! No cell phones or video games and we certainly didn't have our own televisions or a VCR or DVD player. Not even Walkman had been invented.
So she had this cassette recorder.
She also had a math teacher she seriously disliked.
I never had him for a class, but I thought he was sort of an asshole based on what I'd heard from other kids.
So we got the bright idea to make a tape for Mr. Molnar.
We recorded someone 'going to the bathroom' but it wasn't really anyone going. We recorded a zipper going down, used the plunger to plop the water a few times, dumped in half a glass of water to sound like pee, unwound the toilet paper by smacking the roll a little. Said, "Ahhh." Flushed and zipped again.
It wasn't a long recording, maybe a minute or so. And around one AM she dialed his number and hit play.
He said hello, then listened to the entire recording before hanging up.
We laughed until we actually had to pee. Thought it was the funniest damn thing we'd ever done.
In retrospect, I have to give us points for creativity. And what kid doesn't think toilet humor is the height of wit?
Hollie said Molnar never mentioned it. She certainly never said anything to him about it.
I did get my cassette recorder for Christmas that year.
Found creative uses unrelated to toilets.
Next time, I'll try to explain one of the things we did after I got my tape player.
I never did the phone pranks. I never thought they were funny but I was with friends at slumber parties when this went on. You guys were far more creative than anything my friends did at the slumber parties!!!
ReplyDeleteI look back and roll my eyes at myself. What a doorknob. It's true, most teenagers are stupid on occasion. Or stoopid as my friend Amy used to say/spell.
DeleteI remember loving my little cassette recorder, it was definitely our electronics. Nothing to do with the recorder but I had a friend who found a man named Dick Burns in the phone book. OMG, we tortured that poor man with prank calls. I'll leave it up to you to imagine the kind of things we said lol!
ReplyDeleteI loved that recorder.
DeleteWhen I was 17 I moved back to Colorado. In our phone book was a construction outfit. The Stiff Erection company. Seriously. It was featured on Real People. I'm sure they got a lot of calls. We considered calling and asking them to send over three stiff erections immediately... but we never did call them.
Those were the days. Before caller ID.
ReplyDeleteDid you do prank calls? We thought we were SO funny and clever.
DeleteI have had conversations with 'my' kids about this. They can't even imagine it. Until I say, "You know those spam calls your parents get from all sorts of different places with no name?" Then they get it.
I have been getting 4 to 10 of those a week lately. Very odd.
Ahh, what fond memories this evokes. I still remember those days of portable Panasonic tape recorders, corded wall phones- none of today's delightful electronics. I've done a few of these calls myself as a teen, but was always too chickenshit of getting caught to go to overboard. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteWe didn't get caught, but I am sort of surprised we didn't. Once my mom was really suspicious but, well, I lied.
DeleteNot a phone pranker myself either, but seriously... that was a lot of effort. I did get a lot of music played over the phone though. It was much more interesting before caller ID.
ReplyDeleteSo people called you and just played music? That's weird.
DeleteYup. It was a challenge to figure out who it was and why they picked the song they did. 12 year old boys are weird.
DeleteBOYS are weird. Even when they become middle aged men.
DeleteI do remember making my share of prank calls....nothing inovative or creative, just stupidly funny :-)
ReplyDeleteThe things I laughed at back then compared to now. Funny how we change.
DeleteI remember those days. I had a recorder too.
ReplyDeleteI loved that thing so much. 'My' kids really love the little memorex voice recorder I have now. Once in awhile I take it to work, turn it on without saying anything to them, then play back 5 minutes or so of an afternoon. They really get a kick out of it.
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