I'm occasionally asked where the idea of writing prank letters came from, and I suppose the whole thing originated from the obsession I had in my youth with making prank telephone calls. The funny thing is I didn't even have to dial a phone number to carry out a prank call - nearly daily, calls were made to my parent's house by people who were inadvertently setting themselves up for my trickery. Let me explain… My parent's phone number in was 648-2251, with an area code of 817. However, there was a dental office in Goldthwaite, Texas with the same number, 648-2251, only the area code was different - 915. Up until the 1990's in Texas, people were not required to dial the area code. This meant that anyone in the 817 area code that dialed only the last 7 digits would reach our house. Dr. T.C. Graves (the dentist in Goldthwaite) apparently had a lot of patients within the 817 area code. This was evident by the numerous calls we received from his patients trying to contact his office to schedule appointments and whatnot.

To make matters worse, most of Dr. Graves' patients were old and senile, or a least most of the ones calling my parent's house were old and senile. I have to assume that the majority of his patients were born in the early 1900's and were more likely accustomed to cranking a handle on their wooden wall-mounted telephone and reaching an operator who would patch them through correctly. The newfangled dialing telephones seemed to greatly confuse them. Therefore, it usually didn't matter how precise my parents made the explanation to these people that they would need to dial area code 915 before the number, most would simply hang up and once again redial only the last 7 digits and our phone would ring a moment later with the same confused coot wanting to talk to Dr. Graves again. Some people would call several times the same day, over and over, as if they thought the lines had just become crossed earlier and hoped that they had been fixed by the next time they tried to call. After all, these people knew they were dialing the correct number. And they were. They just weren't dialing the entire number so they reached our house every time.

So as I said, each time my parents received one of these calls, they would try their best to direct these people to dial 915 before the number. I watched them do this in frustration time and time again growing up. However, when the time came where I was old enough to be left at the house alone, I utilized my prankish nature and embarked on a whole new set of tactics in dealing with these folks. By the time I was in my preteens, I had discovered the names of nearly everyone who worked in Dr. Graves office just from asking questions of the people who where calling our house. There was Dr. T.C. Graves himself, he was referred to as the "older doctor" because his son was also a dentist in the same office. I referred to his son as Dr. Graves Jr. (though I later found out that his initials stood for Tom Cody while his father's initials stood for Thomas Clark). Then there was the receptionist, Mildred.

*Just a side note - after I began writing this, I did a little research on Dr. T.C. Graves (the "older doctor"). After graduating from Baylor Dental College, he opened his dental practice in Goldthwaite in 1936 and practiced dentistry for 56 years (until 1992). He was involved with the Boy Scouts of America for over 50 years. Alas, he died on March 26th, 1995 at the age of 84, though his life and contributions to his community were later honored by the House of Representatives of the 74th Texas Legislature.

It seems that a lot of people have dental problems over the weekend. As such, on Monday mornings at the Burns house it was almost guaranteed that any phone call coming in was someone calling for Dr. Graves. So especially every Monday morning when I was home and my parents weren't, I began answering the phone as "Mildred". Assuming that Mildred was more than likely an older woman who had probably worked for Dr. Graves for years, I used my best old lady voice whenever I did this. I still sometimes answer the phone as Mildred, simply to confuse people. It's hard to convey an old lady voice in writing, so just imagine what a sassy old woman sounds like here, and that's the voice I use. Mildred. The Mildred Voice as I like to call it. Sassy? I don't know why, I don't know if the actual Mildred was really sassy, but the patients bought it anytime I told them I was Mildred.

Sometimes I would forget to use my Mildred voice when I picked up the phone and it would be a Dr. Graves call. In those cases, I would tell people I was Mildred's grandson who was staying with her over the summer, and that I was helping her around the office. I'd tell them that Mildred was in the back taking a poop and had asked me to answer the phone for her. Sometimes they'd hang up when I told them this, but they'd call right back later and I'd answer the phone as Mildred. One lady was upset about being told that Mildred was pooping, so when she called back and found that she was talking to Mildred (me, answering the phone as Mildred), she told me that she thought the "grandson" was rude on the phone. After getting the old woman to repeat what the "grandson" had told her, I acted really furious at the news and began cursing my "grandson" under my breath as the woman went on telling me what he had said, and then suddenly, I put the phone down on the table, at which point I then began screaming at my "grandson" and making a lot of racket like I was giving him the beating of his life. The lady on the phone could hear this whole act. Then I got back on the phone and told the old woman that he wouldn't be rude any more because I had just beaten him half to death. The woman exclaimed, "Well, you didn't have to do that!" And I replied, "Well, you're right, I should have let you do it. Once you get in here for your appointment, I'll let you finish him off." She hung up and didn't call back.

Other than just generally screwing with the dental patients calling our house, I nearly always made appointments for them. Here's what I'd do - I'd pick a date and time, usually two or three weeks out. Within a set period, I'd make the appointments on a particular day for everyone who called our house during the allotted time. I once made approximately 12 appointments during one three week period, instructing everyone to show up on a particular Friday at 4:45 p.m., you know, right around quitting time that day before the weekend.

Then I started coming up with all sorts of crazy stuff to say. I began telling the patients that the dental office was now open 24/7 in order to keep up with demand. As such, I tried to make appointments for 3:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. Most of these patients couldn't drive in the dark, though, because they were old and all. So I had to squeeze them in right after church on Sunday afternoons (which they thought was quite unheard of in small-town Texas). Goldthwaite is really in the middle-of-nowhere, miles and miles from any major city, so I'm sure that many of his patients were from other small towns in the area, meaning that the drive into Goldthwaite on a Sunday afternoon for a dental appointment only to find the offices closed was aggravating for people, I'm sure.

I would also tell patients that all of the prices were going up on services. Anyone needing a filling replaced would have to pay $10,000. Dentures that needed to be repaired or refitted would also be expensive, a few hundred thousand dollars or so. Let me tell you, these people would get totally irate at this, so much so that they'd hang up on me, but then call back minutes later as if things had changed or something. And I'd answer the phone and tell them that they had hurt my feelings by hanging up on me, and since they were being so rude and belligerent, I was going to charge them a penalty fee. Old people really get spitting mad when they hear things like this!

I also told people needing new dentures that Dr. Graves had begun whittling fake teeth out of wood, and in fact, he had gotten real good at it. I'd say that there was a whole chest full of wooden teeth in the office and I'd try to entice people to come in and rummage through to see if they could find some they liked. I did my best to sell them on the whole idea by pointing out that the wooden teeth were cheap and all the dentist had to do is take out his pocket knife and whittle on the teeth some more as an adjustment to get them to fit nicely. Some actually believed this and made appointments to come in, and for those who weren't keen on getting wooden teeth, I still made them appointments and told them to ask to see the chest once they came in. Oh, to be a fly on the wall to see the confusion when those people showed up (without a real scheduled appointment) to poke around in the chest full of wooden teeth!

One woman called once asking if her dentures had come in (she'd already been fitted for them, and wasn't interested in any of the wooden ones). I put her on hold for a minute or so to think of something to tell her and then I came back on the phone using my old Dr. Graves voice and told her that, yes, her dentures where in, but they might not be what she expected. I told her that I (as Dr. Graves) made the decision for her to have fangs for teeth. I tried to tell her that fangs made it easier to suck the blood out of people, but she was having none of it. Then I tried to convince her that the fangs would come in handy around Halloween. This made her really livid and she hung up. She didn't call back as far as I know.

Another thing that would happen is old people would call, and I would screw with them, and then they'd hang up and call again, and I would screw with them again. Then later in the morning, I'd get another call, only this time it would be the grown son or daughter of the old person who had called earlier. And I would screw with them as well. Most people couldn't figure it out. Finally, after several months of doing this, Dr. Graves (I don't know if it was the "older doctor" or his son) called our house and demanded my parents change their phone number, due to the fact that it was interfering with his practice. My parents, who were more or less at the end of their rope with his patients calling our house but no so far down the rope that they would be willing to change the phone number, told Dr. Graves that he should be the one to change his number if he wanted to avoid mix-ups. Neither my parents nor the dentist were willing to change their numbers. I, however, was given a lecture on how to use the phone, instructions which I effortlessly disregarded. This was too much fun. Actually, I had reached the point where calls to our house for Dr. Graves were not enough, anyway. It was time to expand my little hobby, so I began making prank calls to everyone in town.

Now keep in mind, I lived in Justin, Texas - a town where I was known by nearly 100% of the residents based on my mischievous reputation alone. When I moved out of Justin in 1994, the population boasted 1234 people. I know this because I left town with the city limits sign, which is still hanging on the fence in my back yard - I see it every day to remind me. So it's easy to understand why everyone knew me. I couldn't get away with much, at least not with long term shenanigans. I took out the phone book one summer (I think it was after 9th grade) and called every listing in the book at least once. I inadvertently started a prank calling epidemic in doing so. Also keep in mind that these were the days before caller ID or call tracing or any of the modern identification techniques that are around today. Back until the mid-1990s, anyone receiving a call had no idea who made the call unless the caller identified themselves. Tracing phone calls back then was not easy or common.

It was during this time that I got the idea to record a lot of these calls. Being the creative person that I am, I turned my new venture into an amateur talk show of sorts. I called the new prank-calling show "Phonesounds". I let some of my friends listen to the recorded tapes of this new talk show I was doing, because, face it, it was funny and entertaining, and I was trying to take it to a level that most people would never have the balls to take it. I wasn't calling people to ask them the traditional silly questions like, "Is your refrigerator running" or "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" Hell no. I would tell people all sorts of things. For instance, sometimes I'd call people up and act like a little kid and tell them that I was lost. They'd get very concerned and try to figure out where I was. Totally believing that I was a lost little boy, they'd ask me a bunch of questions to try and figure out where I was and eventually I'd tell them that I wanted some candy, and then I'd get them to tell me that they would give me some candy. After they told me that they would give me candy, I would say out loud, "Oh, mommy (or daddy), this man on the phone called and wants to give me some candy!" Suddenly I would change my voice and act like the kid's mother or father and start scolding the "pervert" on the other end, telling them that I was going to contact the authorities for calling my little boy to try and lure him out of the house with candy. Of course, they would get all bent out of shape and tell me they didn't call my house, and it would go on and on. I was mean. One of my favorite calls were the one's I did to this one old dude in particular. I told him I was the bully that always picked on him in first grade, and I was calling him up 50 years later because I wanted his lunch money. The old man would get really pissed off and threaten all sorts of death upon me. It was really funny.

Well, there were hundreds of different calls I made, some of them were really stupid, but most of them were all good natured and ultimately harmless. However, the idea caught on and my friends began making their own calls, and word spread to the point where before long, half the kids in town were making prank calls. Just when I had more or less stopped prank calling, the police showed up at my house one night to talk to me about the prank call epidemic. They had a whole list of prank calls that had been reported over a few week period, and when the police began reading off the descriptions of these calls, I knew right then that I had made most of them. I think what happened is another kid in town was caught making prank calls and he told the cops I was doing it. I think the kid had a copy of one of my Phonesounds tapes and probably gave it to the cops. I just never accepted the cop's telling me that all of those different people made a police report on getting a prank call, but maybe. Regardless, I denied making any prank calls to the police because I figured the other kid had already been caught red-handed and I had not.

Now the visit from the police didn't completely stop me from making prank calls, nor was it the end of Phonesounds. In fact, I took the whole endeavor to another level once I was in college. A good friend of mine (who will remain nameless) took control of the sound booth in the radio station at the University of North Texas and gave the show a better sense of professionalism by making use of the superior recording equipment. We would spend hours prank calling people and recording it. All of this was before "The Jerky Boys" came out, a couple of guys who would prank call people and record the calls. It never occurred to me that prank call recordings would sell to the mass public. Oh, well, it was around that same time that caller ID came out and we could not longer prank call from a radio station without eventually getting caught, so that was pretty much the end of that. They also changed the rules and required people to dial area codes, so that was the end of us getting any Dr. Graves calls, either. All I do now is screw with bill collectors, telemarketers, or the occasional wrong number whenever they call one of my phones, so at least I still have that.

So - out with the prank calls, in with the prank letters.

Really, I don't know what possessed me to write my first prank letter, but I was sitting around one day and began typing one up. The first prank letter I ever wrote was to Frito Lay concerning an incident that occurred after buying a couple of bags of Ruffles Potato Chips. The original letter I sent to Frito Lay was created out on a typewriter with no copy made, but I rewrote the letter as a story on the computer a few months after I had already mailed off the original. I tried to include, from memory, everything that was in the original. I thought I had lost this rewrite, which I made on October 24th, 1994, but I recently (Aug 2005) found it on an old floppy disk. I'll admit; the Frito Lay letter does not reflect my best writing, so I had to make a few edits before I posted here on my website. It's nice the see how far I've come as a writer since 1994, though. Nevertheless, click the link below to read the letter: