Pic of the Week: The Good Ol' Days

Day 167

I kinda feel bad for kids growing up these days.

While kids today have stuff that I never thought or dreamed of having I do think that I had it better.

Back in the good ol' days it was easier to get away with stuff. Much easier. There was no internet so my parents couldn't log on and check my grades. It was far easier to catch Deficiency Notices in the mail since e-mail was not invented yet. And there were no cell phones so if I skipped school, the school would have to call home. And luckily for me, my mom was at work and not at home. And even when the answering machine came along it was way easy to just delete the message.

Which brings me to this picture:

What does this have to do with getting away with stuff? My dad used to like to take pictures of us and I was not in the mood to smile. So Jennifer whispered something to me to make me laugh. And do you know what she said?

Remember when we farted on the phone?
When Jennifer would babysit me we would have loads of fun. We would watch TV and play games and play the record player full blast and pretend that we were rock stars. Sometimes we would dress up and play, sometimes we would play outside, sometimes we would try to freak out our neighbor's daughter and sometimes we would fart on the phone.

While I think Caller ID is one of the greatest things invented I do miss those days when you could crank call people and get away with it. Nowadays you can't do this without being caught and then probably sued. We didn't do this all the time, in fact I can only remember doing it twice. One time by ourselves and one time with Jennifer's friend Mindy. We would call up a random person or someone we didn't like and then attempt to fart on the phone. But we would end up laughing so hard that we could only (and barely) make farty or burp noises on the phone. And we never got caught.

Until one time we called a restaurant called "Chicken on the Way" and we cranked them a few times since they would always answer the phone. And then they called us back and they scared us straight. But my cranking days didn't end there.

One of my favorite ways to ask a girl to one of the high school dances (you had to ask creatively) was to ask them to take a survey from Utah State University. I would ask these stupid questions and then eventually I would ask some personal questions (like if they ever used deodorant on their feet) and then finally I would say:

"It looks like you pass with flying colors. Now I have one more important question to ask you. Would you like to attend the Christmas Dance with Matt Platis? Please answer him in your own way and I will make sure he has a copy of all your answers."

And then I would hang up the phone. These days I wouldn't be able to get away with that.

My friend Damond LOVED to play pranks on people through the phone. I would come over and would call some buddies or when he was cheerleader, the other girl cheerleaders and then give them a hard time on the phone. I would pretend I was some cousin of one of the cheerleaders (obviously not the one I was calling) and then try to ask them out on a date. But I would either act completely stupid or completely cocky. We would laugh and laugh and Damond would tell me how they reacted the next day during cheerleading practice. Damond was the perfect guy to do this with since he knew those girls so way and there was NO WAY they would think it was him.

I would now like to formally apologize to those cheerleaders. Damond put me up to it!

Like I said, there is no way we could do that today.