Technology isn't always such a good thing.

Just so you know, I am really, really tired of people asking me why I don't have a cell phone. Why would I even need one? I pay enough for my stupid land line phone, and nobody ever fucking calls me anyway. But people are always asking me what my cell number is--and when I tell them I don't have a cell phone, nor do I want one, they look at me like I have a giant polka dot dick sprouting from my chin. Look, nothing is so damned important that it can't wait until I get home. That's what voicemail is for. And if someone is calling to tell me that a close friend or relative is dying, well, chances are they'll still be dying when I get home in a few hours. Until then, leave me the fuck alone, okay?

I have another reason why I dislike telephone technology. It makes prank phone calls a hell of a lot more difficult, and that pisses me off. Hey, I am an immature, infantile man with an odd sense of humor. I have to get my kicks somehow, and fucking with people has always been one of my favorite pasttimes. But I was talking with my friend Tanz one time, and we both agreed that the early 90's saw the end of the glory days of prank calls. First it was *69, which was bad enough. Then came Caller ID, which almost single handedly ruined everything. Don't get me wrong, I do like Caller ID--mostly because it helps me avoid calls from my mother--but it's making the fine art of prank calls an endangered species. Just to clarify here, I'm not referring to people like the Jerky Boys or the Touch Tone Terrorists, who sell commercial CDs of their work--I'm talking about young, mischievious boys with no adult supervision, an available phone line and nothing better to do. These kids weren't in it for profit, they did it for the simple joy of making a stranger's day a little more difficult. If I sound like I'm romanticizing it somewhat, it's because I am. All boys should learn this art.

I was one of those boys who DID learn, and I used it to great effect. So did Tanz, who used to call people in the middle of the night and blare porno movies into the receiver. (As he put it later, imagine being awaken at 3:00am to a voice blaring "I'm gonna drown you in my cum!" from your telephone.) When I was 12 years old, I used to hang out with a weasly little deviant by the name of Mark. My mother hated the kid... she instinctively knew that he was evil, and when the two of us hung out, she knew we were up to no good. As it turns out, she was absolutely correct about that. Just to give you an example, there was this old man who lived on Mark's street who was a real crotchety old bastard. He would sit on his front porch all day long, and when we rode out bikes past his house he'd shake his fists and yell, "You kids better keep those bikes off my lawn, or I'll put my foot up your asses!" Now, we had no interest in him or his fucking lawn, but he always yelled at us anyway. So, one frigid night in the middle of the winter, we decided to exact our revenge...

The old man had just purchased a new car which he was extremely proud of, and he had it parked in the driveway so all the neighborhood could admire it. I was spending the night at Mark's house that evening, and we decided that we wanted to "alter" his new car. So we sneaked over to his house late that night carrying two old pillows (the kind with actual feathers inside), and a GIANT tub of honey. First, we covered the car from front to back with honey... and I'm talking gallons of it... then, we ripped open both pillows and spread millions of feathers over the top. The honey froze solid within minutes, with the feathers stuck to it like glue. In no time at all, the guy's beautiful car looked like a giant metal chicken. The next morning, we got up early to witness the scene as he left the house to go to work. To say the old guy "freaked" would be a gross understatement--we could hear him cussing from six doors down, as he desperately poured hot water over the honey in a vain attempt to clean it off. Not only didn't the honey come off, it also froze his doors shut. Needless to say, he never made into work that day. Meanwhile, me and Mark were watching through the window, laughing like the little shits we were. Hey, the way we saw it, he shouldn't have yelled at us all those times...

You can imagine how we were when we got on hands on a phone. His mother wasn't home a lot, and even when she was, she pretty much left us alone. She was something like 600 pounds (no exaggeration), so the simple act of her getting out of her chair was a major event. Plus, most of our heinous acts were done at night, so we always knew we were safe as long as we could hear her snoring--and let me tell you, you could hear her snoring from anywhere in the house. It was like a fucking jet engine. If the snoring stopped, we'd sit quietly and cease our activities until it started up again. Then we'd pick up the phone and find a new victim. Some kids liked to play baseball--we liked to fuck with people on the phone. What can I say? We were maladjusted misfits.

I have to hand it to Mark, because even at that tender age he was a master. Both of us were blessed with a sense of humor that was vulgar, yet oddly sophisticated. There was none of that "Is your refridgerator running?" bullshit for us when we made calls. No, our prank calls were at a higher level, and rest assured, when you got a call from us you'd NEVER forget it.

Like me, Mark was a great improvisor. We never planned our calls beforehand--we'd literally dial numbers at random and fuck with whoever picked up. To give you an idea of his comedic genius, check out this transcript from a call he made when we accidentally dialed a video store;

CLERK: "Hello, Curtain Up Video, can I help you?"

MARK: "Um... yes. I was wondering, do you guys have Rocky IV?"

CLERK: "Yes, we do."

MARK: "Okay, what other Rocky movies do you have in stock?"

CLERK: "Let me check..." (pause) "We have Part I and Part III, but we don't have Part II."

MARK: "Great." (beat) "Do you have Pulsating Pussies ?" 

For whatever reason, the guy hung up on us at that point. I'm not sure what his deal was. I mean, it's not like it's out of the rhealm of possibility that someone might want to have a video double feature with Rocky Balboa followed up by some lesbian porn. Sounds pretty feasible to me.

Another thing we liked to do was look through the phone book and search the listings for married couples. And if we found a listing for, say, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Smith, that was like a goldmine. I was (and still am) a pretty good mimic, and back in those days I could do a very realistic sounding female voice. So we'd call the number in the middle of the day, when it was very likely that "Mrs. Smith" would be home;

MRS. SMITH: "Hello?"

JEREMY THE LONER: (sounding remarkably like a wanton hussy) "Hi, is Rich there?"

MRS. SMITH: (suspiciously) "No, he's at work right now. Can I take a message?"

JEREMY THE LONER: "This is Cindy calling. Rich was supposed to meet me for lunch today and he's a few minutes late. I was just checking to see if he stopped home."

MRS. SMITH: (suspicion tempered with anger) "Oh, really?"

JEREMY THE LONER: (giggling like a teenage girl) "Oh, he's always late. He loves to keep me waiting. Tee hee hee!"

MRS. SMITH: (starting to boil over) "Is that so???"

JEREMY THE LONER: "Yeah. By the way, who is this?"

MRS. SMITH: "This is his wife."

Then, I'd hang up the phone. Now you have to understand, the humor in this prank lies not in the prank itself, but in imagining what happened to that poor asshole when he got home that day. Can't you just picture it? You can just see poor Rich trudging up the driveway after a hard day at work, his tie askew, briefcase in hand, only to be greeted by the sight of his wife throwing his shit out of the window, screaming "Who's Cindy?? You son of a bitch! Why don't you go see your little whore???" Now, now, I know what you must be thinking... it was a pretty cruel thing to do. And you're right, it was. But it was also pretty damn funny. Admit it.

Want some more examples? Another one of our favorite pranks involved dialing a random number, and if a woman answered, we say "Hello Barb, is Steph there?" If a man answered, we'd say "Hello Bob, is Mac there?" Then, the exchange would typically go like this;

FEMALE VICTIM: "Hello?"

JEREMY THE LONER: "Hello Barb, is Steph there?"

VICTIM: "You have the wrong number."

JEREMY THE LONER: "No, I don't."

VICTIM: "Excuse me?"

JEREMY THE LONER: "Barb... put Steph on the phone."

VICTIM: "I told you, you have the wrong number."

JEREMY THE LONER: "Look... she can't go on avoiding me forever. We can both be adults here. Put her on the phone."

VICTIM: "You have the wrong number!!!"

JEREMY THE LONER: "Look, Barb, you can't go on being the big sister. Let her grow up, for Christ's sake! I'm sorry I fucked around on her, okay?? But we're never going to solve the problem if she won't fucking talk to me!"

VICTIM: "I'm going to hang up now." (click)

But that wasn't the end of it. Nope, not by a long shot. We'd keep calling back. And when they'd hang up, we'd call again. And again. And again. And again. And again. An hour or so later, their day was rapidly going downhill. One time, we kept calling "Bob" and asking for "Mac."  He was polite at first, then annoyed, then angry. Then, he stopped answering the phone altogether, so we'd let it ring for ten minutes or more, if necessary. Then, he'd pick up the phone and hang it up without saying anything. Finally, after 50 or so calls, "Bob" was a broken, defeated man;

(Phone rings many, many times before it's picked up. When it is, "Bob" doesn't say anything.)

JEREMY THE LONER: "Hello, Bob? Bob? Bob..... I know you're there, Bob. Bob? For fuck's sake, Bob, put Mac on the phone. Enough is enough, you spineless prick. Bob? Bob?? BOB???"

VICTIM: (near tears) "Please... you have the wrong number. I'm sorry, but I don't know what else to tell you. Please stop calling here. I don't know anybody named Mac. Please stop calling me. Please. Please. "

JEREMY THE LONER: (after a moment of reflective silence) "Shut the fuck up, Bob, and put Mac on the phone. Now!"

I am totally convinced that we drove some people into seeking therapy. But in our defense, we had nothing better to do. That's what happens when you're 12 years old and the girls ignore you... I mean, SOMEBODY has to suffer.

I never did outgrow my love of the prank call. Even as recently as the late 90's, I was making them on a fairly regular basis. I was working at a now-defuct shoe store at the time and it was a real shithole. Customers rarely wandered into the store, not even by accident. So I used to sit there, bored out of my skull, working eight hour shifts that seemed to take four days. Until... one day... I started making calls from my work phone. The store I worked at was in a shopping plaza, so there were plenty of other stores in the immediate vicinity to fuck with. I would call information (on the company's dime, of course) and get the numbers for all the businesses within eyesight. Suddenly, work was fun again. I was reborn. Witness this call to the Blockbuster Video that was next door;

CLERK: "Blockbuster Video, can I help you?"

JEREMY THE LONER: "Yeah, what's up? Listen, I have a problem."

CLERK: "Okay, what can I do for you?"

JEREMY THE LONER: "Well, here's the thing. My son is in the 2nd grade, and we just threw a birthday party for him. You know, cake, ice cream and a bunch of kids running around my fucking house."

CLERK: "Okay..."

JEREMY THE LONER: "Anyway, my wife figured it would be a good idea to rent some videos to keep the kids busy, you know? So, she stopped by there last night... and, well, I think somebody switched videos on you guys."

CLERK: "What do you mean?"

JEREMY THE LONER: "She rented a bunch of that Disney bullshit for the kids. You know, like Cinderella and all that. So, after all the kids got here, she popped in a video for them to watch, then went to get them some cake and ice cream. When she came back in about 20 minutes, those kids were watching SIN-derella, if you catch my drift."

CLERK: "I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you..."

JEREMY THE LONER: "Those kids were watching a porno video."

CLERK: (long pause) "That can't be. We don't carry adult videos here."

JEREMY THE LONER: "I know that, dumbass, that's what I've been saying. I think somebody switched tapes on you. My wife came in when those kids were watching a big orgy scene and she started to fucking panic. She yanked the tape out of the VCR, but now... now, those kids are asking questions."

CLERK: (stilfling a laugh) "Wow."

JEREMY THE LONER: "Yeah, well, I think it's pretty fucking funny, to tell you the truth. But my wife is freaking out. She wanted to be on the P.T.A. next year, and now this happens."

CLERK: "Well, bring in the tape and we'll exchange it for the right one."

JEREMY THE LONER: "I can't do that right now!"

CLERK: "Why not?"

JEREMY THE LONER: "I'm making a copy of it at the moment."

CLERK: (no longer able to contain his laughter) " Okay, we'll see you later."

See that? Before long, calls like this won't be possible. And that's a shame, because it will force people like me to grow up... or at least pretend to. But what about the children? Will they ever know the joy of being as immature as me? Let's hope so. God forbid that the day will come when a person can't fuck with strangers.

Because that will be a world not worth living in.

-JTL

I could go on all night, but I'm done for now.
If you want to discuss the finer aspects of prank calls, e-mail me HERE
AIM: "JeremyTLoner"