#35

Long ago, in a town far far away called Burbank, lived a girl who was amazing at prank phone calls….ok for real.  

My mom and dad were immature trouble makers in my teens.  They would get a group of people together all the time and make me prank phone call on speakerphone.  They all would give me a story line and something I needed to talk a person into.  And you know what, it’s amazing how easy it is to get people to do things.  Sad, I know!  Could I get someone to meet me at the grocery store at 4am with a bag of potatoes, could I make someone dance in front of Tommy’s Burgers for an hour straight, etc.  Then one of us would go see if they were actually doing it!  It became sort of a competition…  with bigger and more outlandish requests every time.  

So it was a night similar to others.  A group of 15-20 (yes, including my parents) sat in my parents den doing the norm.  But there was a new girl this night that had just moved to LA.  One of my friends brought her.  She had answered an ad online for a male roommate and came out to live with him.  She barely knew him and was asking things like “How can I tell if he’s crazy?  Do you think I made a safe decision?  How do I know if he’s a sleaze ball?  He is so messy but gets mad at me when I ask him to clean, what should I do?”  The unanimous decision was that I prank him and see what kind of a person he is.

She told me that he was a bartender at La Poubelle restaurant.  So I called ‘drunk’, telling him that I found his number in my pocket and my name was Gina Pencil (I’ll skip the long story of how I got to that name!!).  Anyways, I spent HOURS on the phone with this guy!  I had a guitar and I kept singing to him…ridiculous songs.  I don’t know how I kept this guy on the phone considering how insane I was acting.  I kept singing  “La Poubelle Boy” in between every sentence.  I literally sang it a million times throughout the conversation.

Anyways, he had told his new room mate she was not allowed to have anyone but family over!  So I figured, if I could get him to invite me over, she could somehow call him on it…  He not only invited me over but he gave me the security code into the parking garage, the security code into the building and the place he left his hide a key, in case I got there before he did!!!!  So after hours of insanity, I told him I was getting in a cab to head over and he would recognize me because I was wearing a yellow raincoat.

After I hung up the phone I told this girl to head back to her place.  When she walked in I told her to say “I just saw some chick in a raincoat outside, trying to punch in numbers at the gate.  I asked if she needed help and she told me she was coming to 202.  I told her- Hey that’s where I live, I will take you there.  But when I said that, she flipped out and yelled- What a jerk! and ran off.”

So get this!!!  When she walked into her apartment she was amazed.  He had scrubbed every inch of the place.  Even HER room and bathroom!  It smelled like pine-sol.  He had candles burning and fresh flowers in multiple vases around the place!  The carpets had perfect vacuum marks and he was cooking a huge beautiful meal!! -Oh my Gosh!!  She told him what I had told her to say-girl outside, raincoat, ran off yada yada.  We thought then she could bring up- Hey I thought friends weren’t allowed over.  Maybe I can have my friends over too.  But she never got a chance- he flipped out!!  “How could you have done this?  Where is she?  How long ago did she leave?  That was my fiance, the love of my life, we were almost married and this was my last chance to make it right with her!!”  Then he flew out the door looking for ‘random in raincoat’, apparently now fiance of a few years!!!!!!  What!!??

She called my house, where we were all anxiously waiting to hear what had happened.  “What should I do?  He is livid with me!  This has gone too far!  He lied that you were his fiance!!!”  I told her to just go in her room and close the door.  This never happened, never mention it again, hey at least you got him to clean the place!

*****side note- Everyone involved that night would randomly sing “La Poubelle Boy” as a joke.  It became a saying like “your mom”.*****

That was the end of the crazy story………………………So I thought!

Years later my sister was shooting a movie in LA and mom and I were visiting the set.  While sitting in the trailer with one of the other actors, he said something about the restaurant, La Poubelle.  Mom started laughing and sang “La Poubelle Boy!”.  He looked at us in shock and asked where we had heard that song.  My mom told him about the prank phone call and he started cracking up.  “Oh my gosh!  I worked at La Poubelle years ago and the bartender came into work one day crying and was a mess for weeks.  He said that he had broken up with his fiance and she had sung that to him as a goodbye.  We all made fun of what a wuss he was and the whole staff started singing “La Poubelle Boy” on a daily basis.  I still hang out with him and he talks about ‘her’ to this day!!  Now to find out it was all a lie and based on a prank phone call.  What an idiot!”.  We laughed about how horribly far this one prank had been taken.

Again…I thought the story was finished………..  No Sir’ee

A few MORE years go by!!!!

I’m at a birthday party packed to the rim with people (we are talking, 6-7 YEARS after the phone call!).  I was dancing like an idiot with my friends, when a guy tapped me on the shoulder.  “Your name is Haylie, right?” he yelled over the music.  “Yes” I said confused, I didn’t recognize him at all.  “Have we met?” I said.  “No, but you pretty much ruined my life” he said very seriously.  I started laughing, thinking he was kidding.  The music still blaring.  “I’m La Poubelle boy”.  “Uh, hello, nice to meet you” was all I could say…. My friends hadn’t heard, but saw my face and helped me get lost in the crowd.  I found a door and hightailed it out of there.

I’m sure his life is great now!  haha.  But I still feel bad about that prank…. It was the call that changed it all!  I quit after that and have been prank phone call free for a very long time now!  I now have a clean conscience:)  

You got any pranks you regret!!??  Let’s hear em!  Get it off your chest by confessing to Mama Hay!