Because every military base had that one kid with too much free time and access to a landline…plus, a prank call recently made the national news....let's make it a Fun Friday topic.
This certainly doesn't just apply to the military brat kid growing up, but rather a whopping number of youngsters that looked to manufacture some fun entertainment. The notorious Prank Phone Call trick...I'm guilty!
Most are harmless, but some capable of being labeled shameful. As we saw with Shadeur Sanders and the NFL draft last week. That prank call played heavy with his emotions at another level. The prankster regrets it, and many condemn it. I'll be honest, I thought it was just staged for some attention at first. Then the truth came out. Video evidence of the pranksters themselves...not the brightest lightbulbs in the bunch! Probably not the prank call choice I would make. Enough on that....
Before cell phones, caller ID, or the fury of modern technology, there was a magical window of time we now call: The Golden Age of Prank Calls. And if you were a military brat in the 80s or 90s? Oh, buddy...you were living in prank call paradise.
It all started in base housing, where identical homes sat side by side like Lego bricks, and rotary phones had longer cords than some of our parents' deployments. With nothing but boredom and a good understanding of the chain of command, we got creative. Really creative.
Some favorites?
“Is your refrigerator running?” Classic. Timeless. Bonus points if the person on the other end was a young airman who didn’t get the joke and reported it to his superior.
Calling the Base Exchange asking for “Major Payne” or “Colonel Sanders." Or, in your deepest voice possible, identifying yourself as "Colonel Sanders" and informing the worker on the other end you had their buckets of chicken ready for the staff lunch. We were childish, not original.
Random quarters in the phone booth outside the rec. center, or sabotaging the rec. center phone if unattended, random number...waiting to see who’d pick up. Sometimes we’d just yell, “Your mom got lost in the mess hall!" or "Free ice cream at the commissary!” and hang up. Comedy gold… to us, anyway.
Ordering up a pizza or taxi to someone else's house, I know, just wrong. Looking out the window and seeing a taxi driver laying on the horn at the neighbors, priceless!. Created great laughs, but certainly inconveniences.
But let’s be honest, half the time we were calling our own parents or friends. Nothing like calling dad at work pretending to be someone important, which usually backfired. (I remember dad’s voice: “Do you really think the Wing Commander sounds like a 12-year-old with a lisp?”)
Eventually, caller ID came along and killed our covert fun. But for a little while, we ruled the phone lines.
Got a prank call story? Confess your crimes in the comments—we won’t tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment