Catching your refrigerator and other nonsense

I’m going to tell you a tragic story.

The Bandit has a cell phone. That’s not the tragedy – it’s wonderful because now we have something to threaten him with.

The Tragedy in this story is the invention of Caller ID. Now you might have thought that was a good thing, but not when you’re a ten-year-old boy.

Don’t you remember how fun it was making crank phone calls? Today’s children will never really know this childish joy because your phone number – and usually your name – comes up when you call someone.

No one is fooled when this picture comes up, compounded by his special ringer, and his name plastered across the screen.

I doubt I would have been fooled anyway when I answered the phone and a poorly accented voice informed me that he was calling from Tony’s Pizza and someone had ordered 20 pizzas to come to my house and he was demanding payment.

Possibly the giggling gave him away as well. I wasn’t ever able to pull off a good crank call without giggling either.

My brother had me sneak into The Bandit’s phone and change his ID to read Ronald McDonald. He promised to terrorize the kid with crank calls. Sadly, nothing yet but I remain hopeful.