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Monday, April 16, 2012

Hell Phone


I was startled from sleep late one night in February of ’72 when a phone rang in Room #362 at Hedrick Hall on the UCLA campus—the room I shared with Mel, a pre-law undergraduate. The jarring sound scared the shit out of us. We weren’t accustomed to the phone ringing. In fact, this was the first time it had rung—we’d never paid to have it hooked up, and only used it as a nut cracker. Our dorm room wasn’t the neatest of places and the phone was hard to find. It kept ringing as we ripped through piles of dirty clothes, dusty text books and empty beer bottles. We finally found it behind a pizza box.


I pulled a sour-smelling sock off the receiver and barked, “Hello?”


Wrong number.


I hung up and waited a moment before lifting the receiver and pressing it to my ear. A dial tone! Somewhere on the UCLA campus where dorm phone lines originated, an operator must have accidentally pulled the cord on somebody’s service. A mistake had been made while reconnecting the cord and service had been transferrd to our room. Mel and I were suddenly on the receiving end of free and unlimited phone service.


My propensity to chatter had been curtailed by the expense of long-distance calls, but this was like letting the genie out of the bottle. I immediately dialed my girlfriend (the future Mrs. Chatterbox) who was attending a university near San Francisco. She was also startled to receive a call in the middle of the night. When I explained about the phone, she told me to hang up quickly before the police arrived. I told her to stop being such a Tricia Nixon. There wasn’t any way we could get in trouble over this. She finally calmed down. We chatted for three hours.


The next morning, Mel called his folks in Colorado and talked with them for a few hours. Jay from down the hall—famous for his giant red Afro and never one to miss out on a freebie—knew a girl in Australia and rang her up. He let me and Mel speak to her. We took turns chewing the fat with her and laughed when she said we had cute accents. We booted Jay out of our room when he decided to see who was home at the White House.


Curly-haired Barry Ginsberg was a friend who also lived on our floor. He was battling a bad case of crabs at the time so we wouldn’t let him sit on our beds while he phoned his parents in New York. He’d been working hard to lose the nasally New York accent, but it came back thick and heavy when he spoke with his parents. He stood in the middle of our room and scratched his crotch, insisting to his parents that he only socialized with nice girls. He later told us that his folks, in the best matchmaker tradition, had a nice Jewish girl lined up for him. We hoped her daddy owned a penicillin factory.


Out of our gang, only lanky Phil Whipple refused to make any calls, claiming it was wrong to do so without paying for them. Phil was the wet blanket of our group even though he liked to smoke pot. He had his sights set on the priesthood and claimed our phone was a hotline to hell.


Ignoring Phil’s admonition that we were doing something wrong, Mel and I allowed friends to make calls to Houston, Rome, Madrid, Johannesburg, New Delhi and Singapore among others. I suppose my conscience should have been bothered by what we were doing, but I couldn’t help thinking about all the pay phones that had screwed me out of dimes and quarters while I shot the shit with the future Mrs. Chatterbox, and I could only imagine how many more times in the future I would be similarly cheated.


One morning several weeks later, I picked up the phone and the dial tone was gone, the line dead. The error had finally been caught. A part of me was relieved, but it was rough going back to the pay phone down the hall.


To this day I feel a pang of guilt when I imagine the expression on some student’s face at receiving a phone bill for ten thousand bucks.


Submitted to the guys at Dude Write.

46 comments:

  1. So no one ever launched an investigation to find out who made all those calls? Now days since everyone has a cell phone I guess you don't have to worry about this happening.

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  2. Oh, yes, the 'olden days' -- I remember them well!!

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  3. Good grief! With those calls going all over the world, I wonder who ended up eating that bill? This brought back vivid recall of those pre-cell phone days- doesn't seem like all that long ago, though.

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  4. Until I investigate the Statue of Limitations all I'm going to say is yours was not an isolated instance. ;)

    S

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  5. Somewhere records may still exist! It's never too late to put things right!
    On the other hand, it's never to gloat over your good fortune either!

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  6. I love the "dorm picture" that you paint. Colorful characters! And I would have been all over a freebie too!

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  7. Penicillin doesn't work for crabs

    ...which reminds me of a joke

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  8. Hotline to hell, priceless! I would have done the same, especially since I can't pass on a good freebie.

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  9. More than likely a parent of some college kid had a coronary when that phone bill came!!!

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  10. No need to feel bad. I absolve you of all guilt. Where did Mrs. Chatterbox go to school?

    Love,
    Janie

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  11. Pox on you Chatterbox, you have me identifying with Phil Whipple...I woudn't have made a call either. Not because I was going to become a NUN (female Preist = no-no back then) and I was too fearful to ever use pot (it's against the law after all and my dad warned me if I got into trouble, I was on my own) and yes, I would have been called the WET BLANKET of the group, because ya, that is so me....but the real reason I wouldn't have made a call is I would have been worried that someone as poor as myself would have gotten stuck with a bill. That would have made me really sad.

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  12. Like Phil, i would not have been able to make a call, but i would have left the rest of you to your "tender" consciences, ha ha.

    Great room description -- it fits #2 Son's room to a T.

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  13. I'm shocked that they didn't come after you! You really lucked out with that scam, I guess. I couldn't have used the phone, either. I know--wet blanket. Just follow my own set of rules. But I am not a snitch. Well, not as long as nobody gets really hurt or nobody asked me a direct question about it (terrible liar--everything shows on my face people tell me). ;)

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  14. I would be a Phil too without the pot smoking. What mine is mine and what isn't isn't. Just saying.

    Have a terrific day. :)

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  15. There's so much to love in this story, but I particularly liked this line:

    "I told her to stop being such a Tricia Nixon."

    I'm going to use that today. I'll give you credit. (By which I mean, I'll give you no credit.)

    ALSO: you won two free books. Details here: http://www.troublewithroy.com. Commenting pays off!

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  16. Love this story - I can remember getting access to a WATTS line in high school. I don't know who we called, but it was nice to know that I wasn't going to get the bill.

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  17. Funny story. I might not have made the same decision but I will never know. I think the circumstances and age and timeline and all that would have to come into play before I would know if I would arrive at the same conclusion you did and just use the phone until it got disconnected.

    Nowadays...I would have reported it immediately to the phone company.

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  18. I probably wouldn't have used it, I didn't know that many people long distance, but I probably would have enjoyed listening in on the conversations...

    Cat

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  19. And to think I felt guilty because my stoned friends told me to bring my car around to the front of Denny's while they took care of the bill...then walked out behind a couple as they paid, pretending to be in their party.

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  20. The sole public phone booth in my home town one day started working without us having to put any money in. We kids called everyone we could think of (mostly the kids we would see the next day again in school). The whole episode only lasted for about two days, but it generated quite the excitement in my little town.

    Your picture reminded me of a display of a rotary phone in one of the Smithonian museums in Washington. When we visitied there, our son looked puzzled: "So what to you do - stick your finger through the hole and push down?" So we explained to him how you had to actually dial. Son was flabbergastered. "Did they have to do that with elevator buttons, too?"

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  21. Pot? Weed? Crabs? And now I have to dial, too?

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  22. This is hilarious. I wish Sproul Hall had such amenities.

    xoRobyn

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  23. Another hilarious story. At that age I might have taken advantage of my good luck, but most likely not because I would have been afraid they would find me and make me pay or kick me out of school.

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  24. You wicked people - I'm right with the guy who said you'd all go to hell. But,admit I'm glad that you weren't actually liable for the bill after all :)

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  25. Heeehehehe, maybe so but it sure made for some great blog fodder to read here. What a wonderful story teller ya are Man!!!

    God bless and have yourself a magnificent day!!!

    I'm cryin' here..... :o)

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  26. Ha Ha!! you make me smile, Stephen. I need a lift today!!! Lo

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  27. Hey, the other student probably didn't end up paying a dime, and Ma Bell could certainly afford it. Great story!

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  28. Nicely done! Total Re-call indeed.

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  29. Great story, my friend. Gotta give up the guilt though, hey, it proves you're not perfect, everyone makes mistakes, especially in University. I actually did something ongoing in University too, although the money wouldn't have added up to more than $50. I was just about to catch the bus home at the end of a harrowing day and as I passed the vending machines the chocolate called to me. "Ahh, what the hell." I dug out the $1 or so I'd needed and plugged it into the machine. Although I usually didn't pick Snickers bars, it was the best selection on a nearly empty machine (except for the snickers section for some reason). I pushed the button and the bar fell and change jingled into the change slot. I looked down, I had gotten all but 10 cents back!! I stood, dumbfounded. "should I?" "could I?" "YES! I'm a poor student who needs cheap chocolate!" I bought all they had, 6 bars. I shared them with the kids I baby sat to help pay for my books. The next day as I ran to get the bus, I skidded to a stop, seeing that the machine had been totally refilled. "could it possibly be, could I be that lucky??" I plugged in money and got a bar and all but 10 cents back. Woo Hoo! Bonus! I dug into my purse and got all the dimes etc that I could come up with and bought 5 more chocolate bars that day. Holy cow, I had chocolate I could share! I was careful not to take ALL the bars right away, some every day. In a month I was living in a chocolate haze as was everyone I knew! I didn't TELL anyone why I had so many snickers bars, I just kept going back to that vending machine. The guy finally figured it out by the end of the month, thank god or I'd have died of chocolate poisoning!!
    Thanks so much for the compliment on the artwork, I always appreciate your constructive criticism. :o)
    Best,
    Jenn

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  30. Let me tell you again how much I adore your posts. Funny, funny, funny.

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  31. Great story. Things sure have changed since with our free long distance cell phones.

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  32. That's funny. It's probably back when ATT was God. I still use an old eleven pound phone that can double as a lethal weapon. Won't own a fragile cell phone, besides I don't want to talk to people. I don't even answer it very often.

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  33. You should be expecting a visit from Lily Tomlin any day now!

    Cranky Old Man

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  34. OK, first of all kudos on working Tricia Nixon into a blog post. Well done, sir.

    Isn't it funny that the cost of long distance phone calls used to be such an issue? Hard to explain to teenagers, who don't even know what long distance is. Remember Watts lines? If you had a job with a Watts line, it's a wonder you got any work done at all, for all the personal long distance phone calls you felt obligated to make.

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  35. Thanks for the visit and I have added you to my blog list on the left...bt Iam thinking that you are going to teach me bad habits!

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  36. I'm a bit of a nervous nelly and would immediately believe that they would track where the phone had been inadvertently connected and the bill would be mine. I might make a call or two, but I am not letting a bunch of deadbeat hallmates get on that party line.

    Great Post!

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  37. You shouldn't feel too guilty. The phone company was an unholy monopoly back then and they used their pricing power to gouge the consumer.

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  38. The whole time I was reading this I could hear AC/DC in my head singing "Hot-line to HELL!". Sounds more like it was a gift from The Communication Gods. This took me right back to my college days, pumping quarters into the pay phone. Our kids don't even know what pay phones are. Yikes!

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  39. This sounds like it would have made for a hilarious 'Honeymooners' or 'Three's Company' episode. As a college student there aren't many perks, so I imagine this was nice while it lasted. :)


    Michael A. Walker
    Defying Procrastination

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  40. I had a similar experience in college, but it was with the Playboy channel on TV. I think we all missed about 2 weeks of classes thanks to that mixup...

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  41. I would have been much like your wife, too worried about getting caught to enjoy it!

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  42. We had a defective soda machine outside the local grocery store one weekend. We plugged in 50 cents to share a soda between three of us and we got out soda plus 75 cents back. Happy to be able to get another soda, we put in that 50 cents and pocketed the quarter. The same happened again, so we did it again. We now had three sodas and our original 50 cents. We kept plugging the quarters in until the machine ran out. There were cases of soda stacked around the machine. We carried home as much as we could carry and left the rest there. Plus, we had about 8 dollars in quarters.

    It was a good day.

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  43. How funny. I love how you describe the characters so well in your stories with just a few words...

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  44. Ha ha ha...cool story Dude. Loved the brief but vivid character descriptions particularly...
    I made a point of reading every single comment to see if anyone had said "Hey!...I was at UCLA and I got a phone bill for $1,200!!!...Dude, you owe me!"
    Great post :D

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  45. Another awesome post! I quite enjoy reading your writing.

    I can't say I can remember ever being fortunate enough to have anything like this ever happen to me. I probably would have used the phone as well, Although I may not have been as sharing as you were.

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  46. This sounds as if it could be the introduction to a college comedy movie. The way you describe the people makes it sound that way.

    Awesome post! I shutter to think what life would be like in college if I didn't have internet. Though, I never had any long distance relationships since I went to college in state.

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