When I was around 12 years old my best friend, Allison, and I had a prank calling side gig, a passion project if you will. We set up shop in my brother’s bedroom — he was the only one with two phone jacks in his room. With two phones, we could both listen in (these were the days of telephones with wires).
One of our favorite pranks was telling people they were a part of a nation-wide Baskin Robbins contest: if they could list all 31 flavors in something like 60 seconds they would win the contest. The prank callee would start calling out flavors frantically, at which point we could not hold in our howls and they would usually catch on and angrily hang up, but one time someone successfully listed all the flavors and Allison announced, “You are the proud new owner of a matching shower curtain and shower cap!” I have no idea how she came up with that one but, because it was so random, we thought it was hilarious — it still makes me laugh, I admit.
After the booby prize notification, I think the “poor devil” (as my mom used to say) probably hung up. I can’t recall, but I do remember that we devoted many a weekend to our hobby of annoying people. #prankcalls
