Prank Calling

I don't know many kids when I was growing up who never made a prank phone call.  One summer day, the gang of kids were at the Bridges's house doing so.  We would dial a random phone number and say stupid things like, "Is your refrigerator running?"  After the person said yes, we would say "You better go catch it!" and then hang up.  After we had done this for around 30 mins and were laughing the calls began to get worse as we would begin to say bad words.

Mrs. Bridges worked at Willow Meadows Baptist Church part time and would usually be home around lunch.  When we began the prank calling, it was right before her time to come home.  Some of us were in the front of the house and the others were in the master bedroom.  Who ever was making the phone call would signal to someone half way between the rooms to let the others know they could pick up the phone after dialing so that they could listen in.

Over my life time, I have occasionally picked up a phone as someone was calling in before it rang.  This may have happened to you also.  Well, this day of prank phone calling it happened.  I picked up the phone for my turn and didn't hear a dial tone so I was waiting when I heard Mrs. Bridges voice on the phone saying, "Hello", "Hello".  I then said "Hello Mrs. Bridges" and said I would get David or Barry.  I put the phone down.  I then ran to the back and saw David Bridges waiting for the signal to pick up the phone and listen in to a prank call.   I told David that the phone was for him and he then proceeded to pick up the phone and say a bunch of bad words where I immediately blurted out to Dave, "It's your mom!!!!"

Those of us in the room could then hear Mrs. Bridges voice yelling through the phone at David.  We knew he was in big, big trouble and we needed to get out of there.  David never did tell his parents what we were all doing and thus took the punishment by himself.  He was grounded for two weeks.  The rest of us got very lucky!