By Hadrian Flails
What is it that first springs to mind when one reflects on the ancient art of the crank call? Surely, we all recall with a certain nostalgic fondness those halcyon days of youth when Bart Simpson, in his mischievous yet undeniably endearing way, would dial up Moe’s Tavern and ask the beleaguered bartender whether a host of ludicrous names—“Al Coholic,” anyone?—were in attendance. It was a moment of adolescent rebellion, a trifling bit of delinquency that was as amusing as it was harmless. Yes, there were those of us—perhaps even some of you—who, in our own youth, indulged in such antics. But as we age and our horizons expand, so too does our sense of propriety, and one cannot help but wonder: why do we take such unholy delight in watching the suffering of others, even in its most benign form?
For most, the thought of actually placing a crank call today would feel like an act of social heresy, a breach of decorum. The younger generation, burdened with the ennui of modern life and a delicate sense of propriety, can scarcely summon the courage to place a simple order over the phone—let alone harass some unsuspecting soul with cruel and thoughtless prattle.. And yet, for reasons unfathomable to the better angels of our nature, prank call videos—those digital artifacts of frivolity and mockery—continue to amass millions of views on YouTube. It is as though we, too noble and refined to engage in such behaviour ourselves, derive a peculiar, almost perverse satisfaction from observing the unbridled foolishness of others.
Some of these prank calls are so offensive, they border on the grotesque: the unmistakable din of insipid "rap" music blaring through the phone’s crackling receiver, or the cruel, almost barbaric sound of a small rodent’s final moments, captured in grisly detail and transmitted from rural Florida to a remote bed and breakfast in South Yorkshire. And yet, despite these moments of sheer depravity, the majority of these pranks occupy a middle ground, where the victim, understandably frustrated, is reduced to issuing empty threats—“Hang up or I’ll call the police!”—while the caller, in a truly astonishing display of obstinate persistence, dares them to carry through on their word.
I must admit—there is something strangely sublime, even majestic, in the way such chaos unfolds. The interplay between confusion, exasperation, and petty cruelty forms a kind of dissonant symphony, one that, when properly attuned to, offers a fleeting moment of pure comedic ecstasy. And yet, for all that, I have always maintained that there is something deeply problematic, even morally reprehensible, in the practice of harassing others for no other reason than our own amusement. It is an act of cruelty that takes root in the bored, the idle, and those too frivolous to care about the human toll of their actions. This is not behavior that should be lauded; it is something that should be condemned. Or so I believed, until, quite unexpectedly, one week ago today, I made my very first crank call.
As an elder gentleman of 62, it is not always easy to keep one's finger on the pulse of modern humour. The world spins ever faster, and the tricks of youth seem to slip through one's fingers like sand. But on this particular day, driven by some mysterious impulse, I resolved to trust my instincts. After a few sets of press-ups, some abdominal crunches, and a glass of milk (warm, of course) to steady my nerves, I picked up the phone and dialled the number for Papa John’s pizza outlet in Wyoming, US. “Do you have pizzas?” I asked. The answer was, unsurprisingly, “Of course we do; this is a pizza joint.” “That’s good,” I responded, my voice thick and buttery with satisfaction, with a dignity befitting my station, before promptly hanging up and dissolving into a fit of raucous laughter. And so, with my amusement bubbling over, I was compelled to perform several squat-thrusts in celebration.
Feeling emboldened by this minor triumph, I pressed on, dialling the NYPD’s main office in New York. I informed the officer on the other end of the line that I had witnessed a caped vigilante, a hero for our times, running through the streets at night, delivering swift justice to the criminal underworld. I expressed both admiration and a cautious scepticism for his actions, questioning the role of vigilantes in a society governed by law. The officer, rightly, admonished me for wasting police time. But, ever the prankster, I quickly escalated matters, dropping a well-timed bomb threat—just a joke, of course—that silenced her immediately.
And so it went. After a few more sets of pull-ups, I dialled a Christian hotline, eager to test the limits of my absurdity. As I chanted a string of Hebrew words at the poor vicar on the other end. “אִתְקָרְב תּוּרַת קָדָם דַּרְכָּא שְׁמצֵא חָשָׁךְ,” I intoned with a gravitas that even I could not ignore. I could barely contain my laughter when he informed me, with all the long suffering weariness of a man who had surely heard it all, that I had unwittingly subscribed to their newsletter.
In that fleeting moment, I was Bart Simpson—delighting in the misfortune of others, revelling in my own audacity. It leads me to ask: is there not, deep within us all, a hint of Bart Simpson? Once the veneer of civility is stripped away, do we not all yearn, just a little, for the kind of anarchic chaos that fuels such mischief? Perhaps, after all, we ought to take greater risks, indulge more freely in our whims. Perhaps we should make these 'prank calls' more often. Perhaps we should make more impulsive purchases on credit, or engage in the most delightful of petty (but very thirst-quenching) transgressions—such as withholding payment from our children for chores when they cite the illegality of unpaid labour. Perhaps we should urinate through a neighbour’s letterbox, and with a sly smile and a twinkle in our eye, simply claim it was simply an attempt to water their plants. Perhaps we should stop washing our hair for a month, just to see what happens.
Perhaps we should live.
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