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conqueror tongue, crank calls, English Language, places that suck, Tardsie's True-Ass Tales, you got a real purty mouth
By Tardsie

This Delightful Image Is Taken From One Of The Workbooks With Which Tardsie Used To Teach Impressionable Children. No, We’re Not Kidding.
One of the most unnerving experiences I can recall, but which actually turned out to be a whole lot of nothing, occurred in the middle of the night on a train bound for Memphis from Chicago. I travelled on the cheap in those days, and usually slept in the observation car, stretched out on the floor on a blanket. But for reasons I can’t remember, that night I slept in coach. My body crammed between the exterior armrests of the two adjoining seats, my sleep was thin and unrestful, hovering around that line that delineates the divide between sleep and wakefulness.
All the winners seem to come out on the Chicago-New Orleans line, and the guy in the seat behind me was a real piece of work. He was about a hundred shades of mean, with a mousey, frightened girlfriend that didn’t say much unless she was spoken to first. Apparently this guy caused some sort of incident on the train–I never knew exactly what it was, and didn’t even find out anything at all had happened until the wee hours of the morning when they came for him.
And so the immense, threatening silhouette of the Amtrak enforcer to which I awoke wasn’t actually looming over me, even although he appeared to be. And not knowing this, it didn’t matter that he was speaking to the other guy when he said in a low, sinister drawl that practically oozed with tobacco juice, “Yew’re in a whole heap uh trouble, boy!”

“Now Let’s You Jest Drop Them Pants!”
***
Sometimes, when some semi-homeless person shoves a clipboard in my face and demands to know if I’m a registered voter, or a perky young alternavista with three semesters of community college asks if I’d like to give money to downtrodden Uruguayan salamander ranchers, I like to have a little fun.
“I do not…eh…speak zee English,” I say, trotting out a German accent I’ve developed for just such an occasion. I hold up my hands and offer a simpering smile.
And yet–invariably, they apologize to me, as if my failure to learn the Conqueror Tongue is somehow their fault. And it is through their apology that I’m able to apply the pièce de résistance.
Before walking off, I throw ’em a real smile, and say, “There’s no harm done–think nothing of it!”

Whereas, We Must Confess To A Rather Embarrassing Lack Of Aptitude For The Devilishly Tricky Tongue.
***
Those younger folks who have grown up entirely in the age of caller ID have most likely missed out on that beloved adolescent rite of yesteryear, the crank call. As with so many endeavors, the majority of individuals who made crank calls had little or no talent for the calling, and very often resorted to old chestnuts like “Is your refrigerator running?” or slobbery, sexually charged heavy breathing. It’s no wonder that the craft earned such a dismal reputation.
But my friends and I had a special aptitude for crank calls, many times ending the call with our victim not realizing he or she had been cranked, and believing instead that they’d been on the phone with, at best, a moderately disturbed individual, and at worst, a dangerous lunatic.
Our calls ranged from the simple–calling pharmacies to inquire if they sold cannabis (you’d be amazed how many of the people to whom we spoke told us “I’ll have to check with the pharmacist,”) or ringing up pet stores asking for the cheapest puppy (Why the cheapest? Because I’m going to feed it to my python, Hector!). Sometimes I’d pretend to be an evangelist calling to solicit money (I froze up like an amateur and ended the call the one time somebody agreed to send money). Other times we’d call dumps and landfills claiming that due to the nature of our business–which we would not discuss–we were looking for a place to occasionally dump certain waste products, which for safety reasons, were stored in body bags. What we needed, we said, was a guy who could open the gate for us late at night, and who knew how to keep his mouth shut.
My friend Tyrrell made one of the best crank calls I’ve ever heard. His victim was a music store of some kind, Organ Emporium. It went like this:
OE: Organ Emporium.
T: How late are you guys open tonight?
OE: We’re open until 6:00 tonight.
T: Oh, that’s awesome! I’ll be down in an hour.
OE: Great, well we’ll see you–
T: (INTERRUPTING): Wait! Before I come down there, I guess I should at least ask if you guys have a kidney in stock.
OE: I’m sorry?
T: A kidney. I have advanced renal disease, and I need a kidney.
OE: (LONG PAUSE) We…we don’t have kidneys here.
T: But…isn’t this *Organ* Emporium?
OE: Oh…no, no…we sell like piano-organs. Instruments, y’know?
T: (AFTER A LENGTHY PAUSE, VOICE FULL OF TEARS): I hope you know, you were my last hope.

You’ll Have To Determine For Yourself Whether She’s Expertly Performing Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor Or Cruelly Playing With People’s Lives.
More great tales, and all surprisingly non-offensive. 😉
At least your prank phone calls had originality and some thought behind them. I received the infamous heavy-breathing ones you mentioned as well as the notorious, “I know you’re alone,” or “I’m watching you.” Sounds innocuous, but let me assure you, as a 19-year-old girl living in a dumpy sleeping room, those could be pretty unnerving. Caller ID is a gal’s new best friend.
I hadn’t realized…I’ll endeavor to do better in the future.
And for some reason, I could only see the first line of your response. Geez, that would be scary for a nineteen year old guy! I don’t see the appeal in frightening people.
You would have loved the dude who called every Wednesday afternoon and ended up talking to every guy at the Oldsmobile dealership where my husband used to work. His leading question was always, “Do you have musty balls?” Then they would pass the phone around and mess with this pranker for entertainment. I think the pranker was deranged and just calling them for free phone sex, but those guys were twisted enough to find the humor in it.
Well, I give the guy credit for his opening line. “Do you have musty balls?” is fairly creative. And it certainly prompts further discussion…
Taking a break from the defacement of young child stars, I see..(I’m still laughing about Todd Bridges)……Your posts are always funny – Smak…Always!!!
As always, you’re very kind.
How is the class going?
One paper down – so far so good! 🙂
It’s all about which vowel you place in the blank. 🙂
I do have to wonder how many kids reported that Jan had a big d-i-c-k in that little exercise.
English is not an easy language to learn even when it’s your first language.
I like to screw with telemarketers- either by acting foreign, or doing as I did many years ago when some roofing company kept calling to talk to my Mom at all hours and I got tired of fielding the calls.
“I’m sorry. Mrs. _____ isn’t here. She’s been committed to the insane asylum and we have no idea when they’re going to let her out. She’s totally nuts.”
They never called again.
I never thought about the fact that there are ow generations of kids that did not have the enjoyment of crank calls.
Poor kids, they’ll never know what they are missing.
Things were just a little more innocent then! Thanks PW!
Yes!! Someone who appreciates the crank call as much as I do. I used to love crank calling people as a kid. I would always beg my friends to crank call with me during sleepovers, but they thought it was too “mean” or some crap like that. Maybe it was mean, but for some of us, the quest for humor has no bounds.
Thanks, CC! I know what you mean. And are we such awful people for wanting to bring a little joy to a total stranger?
Those crank calls are funny. I don’t know why but it reminded me of playing “knock a door, run” at one particular house. You could hide behind the bins outside and extend an arm and knock on the door. This old bloke answered the door five times in a row, muttering obscenities to himself each time as he wandered back inside again. It was quite a struggle trying not to laugh hiding there, and thinking about it now, I don’t know how he didn’t find me, or anyone else who tried it.
‘Knock a door, run!’ Love it! Our version was called “Ding-Dong Ditch the Doorbell.” (It also often went by another name, using a particularly vile racist word that doesn’t bear repeating here). As a young kid I LOVED door-ditch until my mom ruined my fun in that unique way of hers by pointing out that we had a lot of elderly people in our neighborhood who might be excited at the prospect of a visitor, and really disappointed to find no one there. Mom didn’t fight fair.
I think my mum used the same explanation also, although I didn’t take much notice of it until I was a bit older and got a more informed view on what she was on about.
I get it! Jan has a big dock!
…A big, swangin’ dock!