bparrish@hprnd.hp.com (Bill Parrish) (07/17/90)
I remember a prank (along the lines of asking folks to put the handset in a bucket) that we used to do in college (this was UCSB around 1970). The dorms were set up so that adjacent rooms shared a junction box for telephone connection. It was fun to call up the folks in the next room, identify yourself as "the phone company", and tell them that their bill was overdue, and that their service was being removed. Next thing to do was to pull on the wire as though the phone company was "pulling back" their instrument into the wall. I had this "pulled" on me once, and had fun doing it a few times myself ... by the way, I don't recommend doing this ... we once damaged some property by having the phone instrument knock something off while skittering towards the junction box! (yup ... we fixed it). It was also fun to call up the phone at the dorm desk (which had no ringer, and was only good for local calls), wait for someone to pick up the phone to make a call, and then say something like "FBI, Surveillance Division, Rutherford speaking", and then act kind of embarassed ... and say something about crossed lines. You could get some interesting reactions. Oh, those college days! And then, there was the Goleta Valley Telephone Cooperative, but that's another story. Bill Parrish / HP Roseville CA [Moderator's Note: Do tell us about the Goleta Valley Telephone Cooperative. PT]