My Childhood Pastime : Prank Calling People and Telling Them They Won Cheese
You know what’s great? Being a kid and getting away with everything short of murder. Like “exploring” (i.e. sneaking into the Creepy Neighbor’s house to observe him), “scavenging” (i.e. getting up at 3 a.m. with your little brother to search for loose change around the house), and crank calling.
I loved crank calling when I was a kid. I was a crank calling fiend. If you were in the Yellow Pages, you were instantly at risk that my voice would greet you on the other line sometime around 3:45 and 5:15, post school and prior to Doctor Mom coming home from “squeezing puss” all day, as she would put it.
My crank calling was never random, either. I would specifically look for people with strange last names, as it was naturally assumed that these individuals were inherently weird anyway and deserved to be pranked.
“Erwin Bogstrupple”, for example. I’d definitely call that guy.
My biggest “pitch” during my crank calling career was coupled with the fact that I was (at age 10 or 11), learning how to do basic webdesign.
At this point I knew how to create simple webpage, reserve a domain, and upload the contents — however ridiculous — to the internet for the world to see. The possibilities of this skill were absolutely endless for my imagination. Just conceive of the innocent little deceptions I could create!
YouWonTHECHEESE.com!!! was only an inevitable matter of time.
December 12th, 1995. Get home / eat a pop tart / deceive Immigrant Baby Sitter / obtain cordless phone
Riiiiing. Riiiiing.
Long Incessantly Annoying Beep: “Hi! You’ve reached Weird @*($-ing Name Ashley Can’t Stand! I’m not dancing around the house right now, so puhhh-lease leave a message after the beep, BEEP! Just kidding, haha! And I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Or maybe not! Who knows! BEEP! Haha…”
I hated these people. These PEOPLE who leave MESSAGES on their machines that just go on and on and ramble for a seemingly interminable amount of time for absolutely no conceivable reason. WE GET IT. An ineludable beep at the end of your ridiculous vomiting of poorly strung syllables WILL AT SOME POINT OCCUR. Enough of dragging the process out more, already!
They deserved it, I would always mentally justify. They forced innocent people to listen to minutes upon minutes of idiotic banter. They way I saw it, they stole little pieces of people’s lives.
Riiiiing. RIIIIIING.
Long Incessantly Annoying Beep: “Hi! You’ve reached…”
Me [in a booming announcer's voice]: “CONGRATULATIONS, LUCY! Yoouuuuu’ve won THE CHEESE! Sixteen pounds of limburger, swiss, or the fine innards of GOAT?! WHO KNOWS! Go to www.youwonthecheese.com to claim your prize!”
I’d then hang up, insanely thrilled with myself, and go run around the block for a few hours to wear off the sugar high I’d inevitably gotten myself on.
I never knew what happened to the people who got these messages. I did, however, leave about 500 of them… and I had actually built a website that listed each name with a type of “Cheese Won” next to it. Forty-five pounds of limburger was my favorite go-to prize.
The delivery within 4-6 weeks was a sham, though. I hope nobody was ever too disappointed.
Ah… the sweet — endless hours of childhood. This was almost as fun as that time I captured a four foot pelican off the end of my dock and kept it in the house for three days. Parents still don’t know about THAT one.
Time for a gigantic hunk of Brie.
– Ashley
Wanna know what’s awesome? Being 18-years-old with washboard abs no matter what horrific food-plunder you place inside your body… and doing REALLY BAD indie films.
This one is called The Leather Vixens, and I just re-found it doing another random drunk Google search. It’s pretty freakin’ awesome… somehow got into a few obscure film festivals, too.
I showed up for the audition dressed in head-to-toe black leather. I was 18. Feel free to judge me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1vP1m-hiAI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Dear Delta,
I was recently on flight 45 from Los Angeles to Tampa, Florida. The flight was as delightful as flights-in-coach can theoretically be, the salted peanuts were more than satisfactory, and my complimentary pillow — to my surprise — did not smell of disgruntled infant feces. All fantastic factors I think your airline should be overwhelmingly proud of.
However — one minor detail seemed to elude the Delta Team on August 31st, 2009. It concerned a window in row 16. A window that didn’t exist.
Before you crumple-toss this letter aside with the assumption that it’s some random flying patron who is exasperated by the lack-of-free-blanket-situation you have going on… continue reading. I have a serious issue to discuss with you, Delta.
Upon sitting down and (consequently spilling my overpriced airport Macchiato) in seat 16A, I shortly thereafter became aware that the entirety of my row would remain unoccupied for the duration of the flight (or “Delta flying experience”, as I’ve come to call it). I made a fateful slide over to seat 16B. The Gods were watching out for me that morning.
After the customary buckling of the seatbelt, perusing the irrelevant pop-art safety precaution pamphlet, and draining the rest of my less-than-strong vanguard coffee, I prepared myself for takeoff. The stewardesses did their safety thing (failing yet again to inform us of our ultimately screwed position if something went minority wrong with the plane), and the airliner began trucking down the runway.
It began to take up speed.
I continued sucking down my Macchiato.
This is where it gets interesting.
About forty-five seconds into takeoff, just when I was about to reach for the prohibited electronic item and turn it on — a sudden WHHHHHUUUSHHH sound erupted from my direct right, accompanied by a large window FLYING out of the window socket and ramming into the place where my head would have been, right in window-seat of 16A.
WHHHHHUUUSHHH.
We had just taken off from the ground of the runway. And the window of row 16 had ERUPTED out of the airplane.
I was shockingly calm as I eye-bulgingly stared at the emply place where the window should have been. Obese Pearl-Wearing Domestic Woman in row 17 began screaming, and hysterically proclaiming how we were all about to plunge rapidly to our deaths.
Everyone else was staring at the hole, listening to the WHHHUUSSSH sound, and essentially in various progressive states of shock.
“WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIE!”
With one look at Obese Pearl Wearing Domestic Woman, I decided then and there that if I was fated to plunge into the cement runway of LAX on that absurdly early morning hour, I was certainly not going to do it with the shrill voice of an over-pampered retard resounding in my head.
And with one steady motion… I leaped upon the fallen window.
Yes. Leaped, Delta.
I grappled it between two 22-year-old arms, and I forced it back into the gaping hole from whence it came.
WHHHUUUSSS…hhh…….. hhh…. h.
The sound stopped.
Obese Pearl Wearing Woman tempered her yelling into a soft hyperventilating wheeze.
The passengers all looked at one another. Did the stiletto-wearing chick in seat 16(B) just save us all?
I was mentally forgiven for my second personal item by the entire aircraft that day.
We landed in Tampa with gusto (funny how the pilot instructed all stewardesses not to leave their seats for the entirety of the ride) and the WHUUUUSH sound only re-emitted three or four more times. I was not able to hear high-pitched sounds for a good six days after the experience. I’m pretty sure Obese Pearl Wearing Woman is now deceased.
And thus, Delta, for all of the effort and borderline customer servicing of your psychotic Midwestern patrons (and, you know, circumventing near death) I feel entitled to either the sum of 13.5 million dollars, or free flights for the rest of my life.
I’m certain I’m being more than fair — and if anything, giving you guys a massive deal.
Think of all the lawsuits you could have had. Think of all of the eardrum replacement therapy you would have had to provide for. The cost of re-caucking the window so that it fits back into it’s original frame.
I look forward to your response, Delta. Thank you most sincerely for the opportunity to be in a position to legally screw you over.
Think you can routinely take my nail clippers? What now.
Most sincerely, Ashley Avis
Take Me to "The Wilhelmenia". No, Because You're 35, Ugly, and have a Bad Attitude.
Wednesday, 10:07. The Boyfriend’s Sister’s Brooklyn Apartment.
Wow. So a friend of mine runs a PR company that I helped establish (do the webdesign, help out with marketing, etc) that is targeted towards actors. The amount of money they charge is a pittance compared to any of the other PR companies in town (100 bucks, 200 bucks, compared to the thousands upon f-ing thousands demanded — and rightfully so — by 42West, Workhouse, etc).
Ashley
Oh sweet jesus. You know how sometimes when you drink several Guinness after a forcibly watched women’s UCONN Basketball game — you might unintentionally slip into a state of vegetable and randomly Google yourself?
I’m hardly ever surprised anymore (between the nation of Ghana publicly hating me after Miss Teen Universe ’03 and a having a porn star with a very similar Google name) … but today I found something I actually wasn’t aware of.
Enter my sixteen year old self getting brought in to audition for a TV show — booking it — having the old host suddenly get fired — and suddenly being thrown into an IndyCar Series race 24 hours later to interview (and er, eat cheesecake with and… er, eventually date) Indy500 winner Dan Wheldon, Danica Patrick, and Tony Kanaan. Makes me miss the lack of pores and fabulous hair extensions of the younger years.
Enjoy.
tony kanaan and ashley avis
- Making coffee
- Sex
- Petting my hair when I eat MSG.
- Fighting with gigantic bouncers when I get drunk and belligerant and insult them
- Kissing
- Telling me when my outfits look like Star Wars
- Insulting people I don’t like by sending them singing telegrams
- Proof reading my It’ll-Make-Me-Feel-Better I HATE YOU, DUMBASS!! emails to clients / employees / etc.
- Sexy stuff.
- Pretending to be my assistant when I’m actively avoiding creditors
