Writing Pilates

I called my sister-in-law yesterday in order to receive her non-convoluted and well thought out writing exercise topic for the week. But alas she was in the middle of the worst day of her life, living through a personal nightmare atop the ever malicious Astoria drawbridge. Due to this horror she explained that I would be picking the writing topic and she would participate if able to drag her treacherous vehicle to safety. Well I had been listening to the answering machine before I found out about the whole bridge of doom episode and couldn’t help but notice that the hunky hubby received a prank call. And so, our writing exercise of the week will be on prank calls. If you can handle the terror please skip over here to discover all that transpired upon that fateful bridge and to enjoy my sister-in-law’s version of our writing exercise.

Prank Calls

The hunky hubby still gets prank calls. More often than a man who hasn’t been drunk in 16 years should. I never get prank calls, my grandparents don’t, my parents most definitly don’t. So why the hunky hubby? I have a theory.

Now the prank call is an interesting phenomenon. This crime is most often committed by an individual between the ages of 10 and 20 and is generally accomplished when that person is especially jovial. Those at the younger end of the spectrum tend to call the object of their repressed devotion, while those at the older end lean toward calling when their innate cheerfulness has been amplified by some mind or mood altering substance. Although the gathering of many individuals with double X chromosomes in one location late at night while nibbling unhealthy snack items and watching multiple films that contain: ancient hairstyles, the batting of enormous false eyelashes, and the  incredibly unlikely event of multiple males randomly bursting into song when some well coiffured female holds out her dainty hand and belts out a musical number in their general direction (instead of the standard response of blowing Mountain Dew out of their noses and pelting her with Cheetos until she stops), can be just as mood altering as the aforementioned substances and should not be underestimated for its power to induce the participants to engage in prank calling.

For most of us, especially those who have managed to produce multiple offspring in a short amount of time, our time to either mope over our repressed love, consume mind altering substances, or gather in large groups to nibble and observe eyelash batting, singing, dancing individuals on film… is limited. And those individuals that we know and love are in a similar state.

But there are a few individuals who, while they experience this sad lack of musicals and moping themselves, have managed to maintain acquaintances with no such limitations. When the hunky hubby and I attended a meet-the-faculty event at seminary, I noticed something about his professors. They were all nice, friendly, well spoken, but generally calm and professional. Then one professor entered the scene. He was loud, laughed to much, smiled to widely, and within seconds accumulated a group of persons clamoring for his attention. I instantly though: Youth Guy! And I was right. He taught the youth and family ministry track at the seminary.

Youth Guy, Kid Guy, Camp Guy. This is what the hunky hubby is and will always be. And while not all of our prank callers are youth, last week a 48 year old pastor left a message on our answering machine pretending to be a grouchy parent demanding our views on dispensationalism before sending in his child’s camper registration, all of them know what the hunky hubby is. Essentially a large kid who just happened to have aged unexpectedly and been harnessed with a ridiculous amount of responsibility. But never fear, while he maintains the facade of adulthood well, that inner kid is ever lurking, waiting for just the opportune moment to burst forth. In song, maybe not. In first person shooter’s (video games, mom) which involve setting monkeys on fire, battling Elvis in his full sequined regalia, or fleeing an obese zombie before it can puke on you and attract the whole hoard, definitely.

And that is why we still get prank calls.