I don't remember where I got this idea, but one of my favorite pranks as a young kid would be to go through the phone book and find numbers in the nigger part of town. My buddies and I would call a few numbers until we got one that sounded really stupid or old. We would then tell them that we were with the phone company and that we were trying to save them some money. That got their full attention.

Then we would tell them that the telephone lines were sagging and that they needed to be pulled back up. We explained that if we had to send a crew out it would add $25 to their phone bill. But with their help, we could get them back up at no charge. They were all for it.

We would then instruct them to wrap their phone cord coming out of their wall jack around their hands 2 or three times and then, on the count of 3, to pull as hard as they could.

Almost invariably, we would count ONE TWO THREE and then there would be a !!!!!!!!CLICK!!!!!!!! and the call would disconnect.

We would laugh about that for hours. Funny as hell.

GREL