"Hello, Grandma?"
I used to have a boyfriend who shared an apartment with two friends from his home town who were like the Pinky and the Brain to his Foghorn Leghorn. I didn't know them until later, when I was the Daffy Duck to my boyfriend's Bugs Bunny, but I heard a few of the "good times, good times" stories - as told to me by the Brain, who used to lay in wait for my boyfriend to come home from his job at Dominion, where he worked mis-stockng shelves, to mess with him in one way or another. The Pinky of the friendship I found to be a typical dullard of the times who was really only interested in girls for the possibility of sex, but the Brain I liked because he was very funny and like Cindy Lauper sang of girls "just wanted to have fun" - which was my favourite thing to do, too. He also had a male friend, a designer/photographer, and this guy was always putting the moves on him (or so it seemed to me) so I figured he must be gay - he just hadn't realized it yet. Plus, one time he got really drunk and confessed that although he'd spent an intimate night with his designer friend, he really hadn't enjoyed it - ergo, "I am one hundred percent heterosexual!"
"No gay, I mean, guy is one hundred percent heterosexual", I said.
"Oh thank God. Because I'm probably only fifty percent heterosexual now after last night", he replied.
Anyway, like I say, this guy was really funny but quite leading edge in his pranks, and he was a prankster, make no mistake, so I was very careful around him because I was almost as famous for my impressionable nature as I was for my inability to keep a secret, dance, or break-up with my boyfriend no matter how embarrassed he was by my inability to dance. Meanwhile, my boyfriend fancied himself the cleverest man in the world (it was like he'd been blessed at birth with a Madonna-like self-confidence) and so was quite often the victim of the Brain's random and quite brilliant pranks.
As was the custom of the times, as it continues to be with young men of a certain age, these three would often sit around in their apartment smoking dope and listening to the sort of music girlfriends will pretend to like until they reach middle age and scream, "ENOUGH VAN HALEN!!!" and put on some k.d. lang to realign the relationship.
So, the three are well and truly basted (well, Pinky and my boyfriend are - the Brain only got sharper with weed) and my boyfriend says, "I'll be right back" and heads to the john. While he's in there, the Brain picks up the phone and (I still can't believe a guy would do this to another guy - stoned) calls my boyfriend's GRANDMOTHER who lives in a small town in eastern Ontario.
As luck would have it (I swear, my boyfriend had the luck of the Germans or something - even though he was Irish) his grandmother was home (it was about 9:00 on a Friday night, so she'd probably just finished watching Street Legal) and answered.
"Hello?"
"Oh, hello, Mrs. Smith. I'm glad you're home. Your grandson wanted to talk to you."
Then he calls for my boyfriend, "Jo-ohn! Your grandmother's on the phone."
So my boyfriend, stoned, and totally freaked out that his grandmother is calling on a Friday night at 9:00 takes the phone.
"Uh... Hi, Grandma."
And there's a pause. A long pause. Then his grandmother, deciding, I guess, to take advantage of having him on the phone regardless of how he got there, says, "Oh hi, Honey. Do you know Mrs. Snell?"
"Uh... No."
"Well, yesterday she tripped over Mr. Johnson's crazy long hose and we think she's cracked her pelvis."
Which was pretty much when the panic set in and my boyfriend started to sweat buckets before dissolving into uncontrollable laughter, the laughter of the ridiculously stoned, mixed with abject apologies for laughing at Mrs. Snell's misfortune due to Mr. Johnson's crazy long hose.
"Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahaha. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Grandma, hahahahahaha, I gotta, hahahahaha, go." And he handed the phone back to the Brain who carried on the conversation about Mrs. Snell for about half and hour or so, delighting in every detail, and savouring the delicious prank he'd just pulled, which he would retell for years afteward, his legacy secured in the world of prankdom.
To this day I've never heard tell of a buddy doing such a thing to another buddy that even comes close. It's really one of those "worst social fears" type things - talking to your grandmother on the phone, stoned. But there's something admirably inspired about it, too. I mean, really. Never mind the Spanish Inquisition. NOBODY expects a buddy to phone your grandmother, when you're stoned out of your mind, to have a chat.
So there you go all you kids out there. If you're ever at a loss for a wicked prank to play on a friend, this is one for the ages - all ages. In fact, if the Brain managed to hang on to fifty percent of his heterosexuality (alas, I have my doubts, ladies) he might even be pulling it on his own kids right about now.
