beelee, when we were kids in odessa, texas, we used to call the safeway supermarket and ask the manager to please page, over the store intercom speakers, john hunt. when no one answered the page and he told us there was no one in the store answering the page, we asked if he could page john's brother, mike. amazing how people in those days just did what they were told. we'd have friends inside the store shopping w/their moms who said they heard the pages, then we'd tell them we were the ones who did it. those were simple times, and we were simple minded kids. but it worked and it was way funnier than asking them if they had prince albert in the can. if you did that now, no one would know what you're talking about. we also had one where we pretended to be from the phone company and asked them to unscrew the mouthpiece cover of their phone. then we'd ask them if they could see the disk w/the speaker in it. when they said they could, we'd ask them to remove it but to tell us when they were about to take it out. they'd tell us, then we'd wait and ask them if it was out. when they didn't answer, because duhhhhhh they couldn't speak into the phone w/that removed, we'd call them all kinds of names. or, a variation, we'd tell them there was a lineman on the line behind their house and he would be electrocuted if they answered their phone in the next 3 minutes. we'd ask them to hang up and not answer their phone for at least 3 minutes while repairs were made. then we'd start calling at almost 3 minutes and keep calling until they answered the phone. the second they picked up the phone we'd scream a blood curdling scream. we did this to neighbors and we'd have kids looking over their backfences. it was hilarious to have the other kids we played with tell us about how the homeowners came running into their backyards and out into the alleys afraid they'd just electrocuted a telephone company lineman. as i said, those were simple times.
