I got what must have been the very worst prank phone call I’ve ever answered in my life. Not annoying, rude or obscene, just a really, really dumb crank call.

The phone rang at about ten-thirty. My Darling B will let it ring and ring because most of the phone calls we get are salesmen, so she lets them all go to the answering machine to screen the callers. We were watching a movie, though, the spectacularly entertaining Monsters Inc. that I finally found a copy of at the thrift store after combing through dozens of cassettes of crappy Disney movies for the past six months. I paused the movie and, to stop the phone ringing, I picked up the receiver and answered, “Hello?”

There was a longish pause before the voice of what sounded like an older man came on, and I mean older relative to me, as if maybe somebody at a local nursing home couldn’t sleep and decided to pass the night away by picking numbers at random from the phone book and bothering people all night.

“Is Dave there?” he asked . Our number’s listed in the phone book so I didn’t think it was especially weird that he used my name.

I didn’t recognize the voice so I asked, “Who’s calling please?”

There was, again, a longish pause before he unconvincingly gave his name as “David …” (pause, as if maybe glancing at the phone book for a name) “… Alexander.”

If ever I knew somebody named David … Alexander, I’ve completely forgotten him now. No offense, David.
“What can I help you with, David Alexander?”

And again there was a excruciatingly long pause. This was not only the most poorly planned, badly executed crank phone call ever, it was also the most boring.

He finally managed to mumble, “I was wondering …,” before he had to pause again to recall what he’d been wondering. Oh, yeah! “… what you were doing tonight. Or tomorrow night.”

It’s a question you ask people when you’re thinking about getting together, but his tone of voice made it sound more like he was taking a survey. “What I’m doing tonight?” I repeated.

“Yeah,” he affirmed.

“Tonight I’m watching a movie, thanks for asking.”

“Okay,” he said, apparently satisfied with my answer.

If they’re not flat-out abusive I’ll sometimes go along with crank calls for a while, just for yuks, but this one was going nowhere, and the movie was on pause, waiting for us. “Well, thanks for calling, David Alexander,” I said. “Bye.”

I’m very interested to see if he calls back, but if he does I hope he calls a little earlier, or waits until the movie’s over.