This one time, on April Fool’s Day, I played some epic phone pranks on my friends. I don’t usually do prank calls, but I love April Fool’s pranks, and these friends were all hundreds of miles away from me. I mostly communicate with these friends via Internet, so they weren’t very familiar with my voice. I put on my thinking cap, got out my phonebook, and went to work.
[One thing to note: these friends call me by the nickname of Boston, from the band Boston’s epic song “Amanda.” I take them by surprise and make them realize.]
[Another thing to note: some names are changed to protect the not-so-innocent.]
Mary, at the time, worked at a small computer networking company that sold and maintained servers and other related stuff. I knew her boss was incompetent, and I knew that the company worked with companies along the East Coast. I called and identified myself as a client in Boston (WINK, WINK) and in a very panicky voice, I informed her that the server we had purchased from her company was on fire. I freaked out on her about data loss and demanded to know what they were going to do to replace the server and the data. Mary is a cool cucumber, but she got panicked and started stammering and freaking out too. After several seconds of that, I said, “Hey, Mary? Guess what. Sometimes people who say they are from Boston…are really people named Boston.” Two beats later, she was laughing madly. She said that I had gotten her good, and that she wouldn’t be surprised if her boss DID sell a defective server that started on fire. She told me that I had made her day, and I was pleased as punch. [Ed. note: Mary later got a much better job working for someone who is not incompetent.]
Kali, a very close friend that I talk to several times a week via email, works at a pet supply company. They make a variety of products, including a litterbox with machinery that automatically cleans it. Some of these products, especially the litterboxes, are difficult for some people, and, unfortunately, they call Kali to bitch and moan. This one time, she sent me an email with her work signature on it, including her direct phone line. Luckily, I knew it would come in handy and kept it. I called her up and, once again, identified myself as a customer from Boston (NUDGE, NUDGE). I told her that my automatic litterbox wasn’t working, that it started operating while my cat was in it, and that my cat was, in fact, bleeding all over. I distinctly remember saying, “There’s blood all over!!!” several times. Like Mary, Kali also took it seriously and started freaking out. She told me later that she was trying to figure out which coworker to transfer my call to. Then I pulled out my “people from Boston are sometimes Boston” line, and she collapsed in laughter. This was the first time she and I had spoken on the phone. I should mention here that I called Kali first, and after her pranking, she gave me Mary’s number.
Helga works for a very well-known organization that sells cookies every year. She, of course, has no hand in the cookie business. I called her office phone and was greeted by her voicemail, because she’s all important and does big-deal stuff outside of the office. I wasn’t prepared for that, but while I listened to her outgoing message, I got ready. Helga is a former coworker and does know the sound of my voice, so I tried to sound like a little old lady. I left a message complaining that I had recently purchased a box of cookies, and I bit into a cookie and broke my tooth. I said that the cookies were too hard, and that I wanted to know what her employer was going to do about fixing my tooth. Then paused and shouted a “gotcha, Helga!” into the phone, hung up, and gleefully received her text about it a few hours later. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but she probably called me a dork.
Moral of the story: don’t let me get ahold of your work phone number.
