Well, you'd better let him out
Back when I was a kid that was #1 on the prank phone call list. That the shopkeeper would say yes rather thank cuss me out or at least hang up on me was a continuing source of surprise.
Growing up I never littered (still don't) and always looked both ways when crossing the street as advised by Officer Funk the cop who visited the Happy Dan Show. I don't have a time machine so that I can check but I bet I was a smug little creep.
About 18 I relaxed. Some would say a little too much. With John's inspiration I rediscovered telephone pranks and the simple joy of annoying people on the street.
What we'd say to people on the streets of Savannah I've largely forgotten. I'm surprised we didn't get hurt. In response to whatever John had shouted at him from a car one man pulled a gun. "Get that dick out of your mouth" was what John would say to suits smoking cigars. They were too nonplussed say anything back. They'd just walk faster.
John could be pretty artful on the phone. He'd call people at random and talk to them like they were old friends. They'd never admit they did know him or at least couldn't remember who he was. He had a Pentecostal preacher convinced that he was the angry brother of a teenage girl that one of the preacher's congregation had gotten pregnant.
Victor's mother had an archetypal nasty old snoop for a neighbor. A gossipy, demonic Gladys Kravitz. There was no caller ID or Automatic Number Identification. We called every pizza parlor that would deliver. Every TV repairman, carpet cleaner, taxicab.
Anybody who'd come out in a car. Sitting next door we greatly enjoyed the traffic jam as truck and car after truck and car pulled up.
A lady in downtown Savannah ran an employment agency. From our experience she just took your five bucks and you never heard from her. Wanting revenge we had her water, gas, electricity and phone shut off. Foolishly we didn't stop. Wanting to gloat John called her from my parents' home. Southern Bell (now BellSouth) locked the phone.
Oops. I had my first experience with the criminal justice system.
Later in Atlanta we'd harass the local drug store. I don't think we did anything clever. When we hung up after one call we picked up the phone for another one and found the phone was still connected. Oh dear. I yanked the phone cord out of the wall breaking the lock before they could trace the number.
Mostly we enjoyed disorienting people. Fooling them. Never called them up and cussed them out.
We started calling people late at night and telling them that we were from Tell-A-Time, the national wakeup and timing service. You could have us get you out of bed in the morning or time a three minute egg. We were calling because someone had bought them a gift subscription to the service and instructed us to make the first call at 1:00 a.m. Everybody believed it. They'd tell us when the wanted to get up that morning. We'd call them and ask them if they knew that gullible wasn't in the dictionary.
Jim Bakker was still hosting the 700 Club back then. I had the rare pleasure of seeing one of telephone answers flinch at my call.
Our biggest moment came from one of our most inane calls. We called the last person listed in the Atlanta phone book and asked him if he knew that he was there at the bottom of the last column. His sputtering indignation must've been a joy to hear because John could not stop calling him.
Buying the Atlanta Journal one morning our victim had made one of the front sections of the paper. His wife had passed away a few years earlier. He was wanting to find his high school sweetheart. The agglomeration of z's was her pet name for him. Seemed an unlikely endearment to me. But some folks can't settle for a merely trite darling or sweetie-pie He'd been hoping she'd one day read the Atlanta phone book, turn to the last page, see his name and call him.
I knew I'd never exceed that and I couldn't think of anything new or creative. So I stopped.
Many years later a very tiny Christian TV station would rouse me to fresh activity. They were so hokey and sincere I couldn't fight the urge. They were on the air live and you got to hear both sides of the call. So I heard my own voice coming out of the television saying something like I was the Lord God of Hosts and I liked assorted illegal sexual pastimes. Smartening up they put their shows on timed delay. My last call ever.
About the same time waking up one Sunday morning still drunk from a night of heavy drinking I went over to the church next door and scribbled a few things on their door.
When I sobered up I felt pretty sheepish.
I'm an upright citizen nowadays. Not that I regret my more foolish days.