POST // 003 - SHIFT + FN + Chaos

By the summer between seventh and eighth grade, Karl, his younger brother Eric, and I were spending a lot of time together. We lived close enough that getting together didn't require much planning. We'd disappear into the woods for hours building trails and forts, ride bikes around the neighborhood, watch movies, play games, and generally find ways to entertain ourselves.

Karl and I had become especially close. We had a lot of the same interests and, maybe more importantly at that age, a similar willingness to go along with whatever stupid idea the other person came up with. Eric was younger, but he was around for a lot of it too. The three of us spent enough time together that boredom eventually became less of a problem and more of a challenge.

Karl's family had a computer in his dad's office that we'd already spent plenty of time playing games on and exploring. As we got more comfortable with it, we started finding new ways to use it.

I don't know who came up with this idea. It wasn't an original idea. Bart Simpson did it first. But whoever introduced the idea when sheer boredom set in started us down a path of pre-teen debauchery.

Karl's computer had a ton of .wav sound files from movies and TV shows. We decided that it would be fun to call some of the local fast-food restaurants and ask them if they had certain food items. They were not amused, and I can understand why, but at the time... it was hilarious.

We'd play sound files from TV shows, including Apu saying, "Thank you, come again!" Usually, the person on the phone would get angry and yell at us or just hang up. Of course, that only made it funnier.

But, like all things, it escalated.

One of our favorites was from The Blues Brothers. The audio file went something like, "Four fried chickens, and a Coke, and some dry white toast." I specifically remember one Saturday night when we called up the local Hardee's restaurant. They answered the phone and we played the sound bite. They were very confused. This went on for way longer than it should have, and every passing moment became more hilarious than the next. I was trying to talk to the Hardee's worker at the same time and was laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe. I was trying to control myself but I had totally lost it and was full-on hyperventilating. The computer played back the sound over and over and over again, each time this person struggling to understand how much chicken we wanted while also trying to explain that they didn't serve toast. Why didn't they just hang up the phone and end it!? I finally had to end the call because I was about to pass out from a lack of oxygen.

Other times, we would just dial a random number for the other person, and the goal was to see who could hold a conversation with whoever answered and how long the call could last. This was probably the youth version of social engineering at its worst, but it was exciting. Sometimes we did really well, and sometimes it was over pretty fast.

Every once in a while, you'd get an older person who answered and suddenly you were on the phone for an hour. Maybe they were playing the game too and they were winning. At that point, the game became trying to gracefully get yourself out of the conversation!

I remember one night the number led to a local bar. I'd love to tell you that I specifically remember the fine details, but I don't. I remember that I asked if someone by a specific name was there, and it was so loud at the bar that they thought I had said someone else.

"Are you looking for Big Bobby?"

And I thought, Oh hell yeah!

"Yeah."

"He's not here tonight!"

A few weeks later, we called the same bar and asked for Big Bobby and, lo and behold, he was there. For the next few years we'd randomly decide to call the bar looking for him. Sometimes I'd ask him random questions, sometimes we'd just play random sound bites. Either way... it was hilarious. He never really got upset. He just took it in stride.

Eventually, like most things we did, we got bored with it and moved on.

The computer had become a tool for pre-teen chaos.