Prank Phone Calls With Jett – Mad Chaos: July 24, 1998

Last night I didn’t get to sleep until just after 6am.  Playing computer games and then watching aerobics on television, I finally got tired and went to sleep.  Funny that is because last night when I was talking to Jewell over the phone I started to get drowsy.

Lyssa Complains About Penelope

This morning I started waking up around 1pm.  That’s about the time that Lyssa called me from work.  Not that surprised I was tired but stuck on the phone.  

Lyssa complained, “I am so mad at Penelope.  She doesn’t call me.  I don’t know what she has been doing.  Penelope doesn’t talk to anyone these days.  She has kept to herself for so long.  It makes me sick how Ali and Penelope are always together!  If Ali isn’t working and Penelope isn’t at school then every other moment is spent with each other.”

She complained that Ali and Penelope have the rest of their lives to be together (as they think they are getting married), so why act like a married couple already.

As a result of Ali and Penelope spending so much time with each other, Ali never calls me or even tries to associate with anyone.  

“Ali and Penelope are visiting the Catholic Club tonight for a few hours.  I am also going,” Lyssa mentioned.

I gather if Ali goes, she will be at his side.  

Tomorrow, Ali and Penelope are going to Mazin’s Birthday.  That means Ali won’t be bothering to ring me tonight.  Well, Ali and Imad always used to say this to me, but now ironically it’s my turn.  

Ali is pussy whipped and Imad is just as lost as the day he was born.

The Boys Are Pussy Whipped

Tonight I didn’t bother calling Ali because I knew he would have plans.  I’m not the one to grovel and influence Ali to come out with ‘The Boyz’.  If Ali wants this then let him be.  

Saying this, I know that Ali and Penelope will be more sick of each other on a daily basis.  Sooner or later Ali will have a big fight with Penelope.  He would probably come looking for a friend.  On the other hand, if he leaves this long enough, then he will be too proud to come visit me.

Now that I’m not with Lyssa anymore, things have changed, but not directly because of my breakup.  Ali and Penelope now see a break in ties and friendships are torn.  I know that Penelope will stick by Lyssa and will probably hate me, because Ali is weak to Penelope’s will (because she doesn’t give him any and he will agree with her commands as a result).  Who wears the big shoes in the relationship?  Probably the clown.

“I have been trying to call Penelope every day but she’s never home.  Her mobile phone is only switched on when Ali has to call her.  Once she is with Ali, she switches her phone off again,” Lyssa derided.

Velda was trying to get into contact with Penelope for her birthday but she has had no success.  Big Joke.  Draw your own conclusion.  In ten years time we will see if this relationship was all wrong.

Lyssa’s Night Out

Far from that outcry, Lyssa moved on to talk about her night.

“I will be visiting the Catholic Club tonight.  Saturday night no one is going out.  They are all doing the couples thing.”

Lyssa paused to then tell me, “I miss you.”

“This morning at 6am I thought of giving you a call at home because I was reminiscing about you,” I replied.

In my head I knew Lyssa and I were great together.  I just wanted to say that I would always care.  

One hour passed and Lyssa had to leave after that, so it was goodbye.  

“I can’t ring you tonight because I am off to do my aerobics.  Then I will go to the Catholic Club,” she reminded me.  

Watching Old Game Tapes On VHS

After my conversation I tried to sleep for a couple more hours.  Head to the pillow, I didn’t wake up until 4pm.  

For the rest of the day I was in my room because it was a cold and cloudy day.  After playing my computer for a short time, I turned to my video tapes in search of some old ‘Game Tapes’.  Sifting through all of my homemade tapes when I used to record me playing games on my Amiga 500, I was surprised to find so much old memories.  Most of the footage was scratchy and blurred, but I was ecstatic.  Finding a tape with Conan cartoons, I watched a couple of episodes.

Content In My Own Company

Finally, the time reached 7pm.  I started watching Seinfeld.  By this time I knew that Ali wasn’t coming over but I was content with being by myself for the night.  

Having called Jewell too much, I decided not to give her a call tonight because I told her I would be busy.  Instead, I kept watching my television.  I thought I would call Jett for the night but decided against it.

Jett Drives Over

Through my television viewing I heard a motorbike outside my house.  Recalling the engine sound I knew it was Jett.  Jett has really been around for me lately when he doesn’t have to be.  Being one of my friends from back in the days of school, I was glad to have him as a friend.  Jett has always had an understanding and caring side.  That’s why he dropped over my house for the night.

Inviting him into the house, he stepped inside.  At first we were lost for words because I wasn’t really doing anything.  Jett was going to bring over his Sega Saturn (or was it the PlayStation) so we could have some fun with the games he just had burnt onto CD.  

Starting to relax we then thought what would be a good idea.  Giving Imad a call, he sounded like he was arguing with someone in the far distance.

“Call me back in five minutes,” he told me. 

Jett and I talked for a while.  

Then I called back Imad.  Still not sure about what he was doing, he asked me to call back.  This time the car was rolling.

Phone Phreaks With Jett

Jett and I had the idea of once again pranking people with the option of using my computer as a recorder.  For the rest of the night we had a mad time.  We brought down the phone book to relive some of the memories with ‘Dabbagh’.  

Now I know you’re asking, “Who is Dabbagh?”

Let me fill you in on some history.  I’m not sure if it was within or before my Diary (it would have been about a year or two beforehand nearing the days when Imad was living in Airds) but we used to prank on the phone as far back as I can remember.  

Phone freaking started when we were around the age of thirteen back in Imad’s house.  Imad and I would ring up some people and then yell abuse at them, laugh, and then hang up the phone.  The real classical work didn’t begin until the invention of hooking a microphone to the speaker.

The History Of Prank Phone Calls

Imad and I one day rang a guy called ‘Dabboul’ and he was Lebanese.  Both Imad and I didn’t know very good Lebanese language back then, but we had fun with him.  

Our ploy was that we were his cousin’s from America.

We would always say, “Hello, it’s Johnny, Johnny from America!”

He would say, “You Johnny from America” in his Lebanese voice and then scream out to the family, “It’s Johnny from America,” followed by some Lebanese bullshit.  

The whole family would jump on the phone.  There were Imad and I speaking to the family trying to put on a dialect of Lebanese.

It all started to take a turn for the worse for them and funnier for us as we started to cuss in their language.  Making them look like fools, they started swearing back at us.  

The very first time we called the ‘Dabboul’ family we successively called them back at least five times.  Once we even had them use a whistle over the phone for a minute, stop, and then start again.  There we were on the other end laughing our guts out.

For a while Tino started using my copyright of ‘Johnny from America’ trying to make tapes up like Imad and I did.  

Now I know you still have questions about ‘Dabbagh’.  I didn’t get to finish my story off about him.  Ages ago we used to prank two celebrity phone freaks called ‘Dabboul’ and ‘Dabbagh’.  Both of them, we used the ploy of being their cousin Johnny from America.  They both fell for it in a big way.  The good thing about these two families was that they were Lebanese.  Knowing only the swear words in this language, they didn’t react too kindly to my gestures.  

The other good thing about these two families was that they were persistent in giving their two cents every time we called them, and we called them plenty.  These conversations were ongoing for a while.  Then we would give them a break until a bunch of us got together.  That was the reminiscent number, the numbers we call back for good old times and always got a laugh.

Then, there were the days when I used to hang with Jett and Tod at a flat in the midst of Campbelltown.  There we used to take out the speaker of the phone and connect it up to a microphone, and tape the audio onto cassette tape.  We used to have stacks of fun at the flat.  We would have a couple of people over at a time pranking.  This could have even been before or just after Imad and I pranked from his house, but it was the building block of my phone freaking.

The History Of Funny Tapes

Things started to get technical when we moved office to my house a year or two later.  Phone bills started to soar with the invention of the modem on my Amiga 500 and calling Bulletin Boards.  

From my house Jett and I helped each other make a non-profitable business called ‘The Funny Tapes’.  There were three of these in succession.  The first one wasn’t that funny because you could only hear our voices, it wasn’t hooked up to a speaker.  The second tape was better but not much jokes and not as clear.  The third funny tape was a classic where Jett and I joined forces and called a couple of people.  This is where all the laughs were won and lost, not repetitive.  You would consider this tape the gold of the collection.