A day after I published The Greatest Prank Phone Call in the History of Man, I received emails, instant messages, and phone calls from Luc, wanting to tell his side of the story. Now he will tell his side of the story, better shed better light on the unbridled awesome that was that call.

So without further ado, a reading from the Gospel, according to Luc.

–YHG

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Anyone who was old enough in the nineties to know that the Millcreek Mall was never gonna be the same again when the conversation pits were filled in, was also old enough to remember that for some unknown reason, there were a LOT of tornado warnings in Erie County during that time. The people who filled the pits may have angered the gods. And for an even odder reason I have yet to figure out, I’ve always been absolutely terrified of tornadoes. You may think “Come on Luc, who the hell isn’t?” and to that I ask YOU:

Did you stash your most prized possessions under the steps when you were seven because the sky got dark at three in the afternoon? How about jumping in the bathtub at mere the issuance of a tornado watch when you were eleven? I used to be that scared, I’m more intrigued now more than anything else, but Coons called it, I was astraphobic.

I’m not sure where it came from. It could be from how I first learned what one was. I lived in a trailer park in Lake City on May 31, 1985. I remember how purple the TV screen was, how black the sky was and how awful the voice sounded (and still does) when the NWS was giving instructions on what to do if a “tomato was coming toward you” I freaked and asked my stepdad why a tomato was attacking Albion. He corrected me and told me what they were and what they did.

“Tom? How far is it from here to Albion?”

“10 miles”

“is it headed this way?”

“I don’t know”

I wasn’t traumatized by anything he said but I DO remember it clearly.

So lets talk about a certain phone call…..

I was minding my own dammed business watching the storms on the weather channel, because it was BAD out. The grass was HORIZONTAL in the yard from the wind. There was a spinner watch and I was already nerved up.

I wanna take a second to say that I don’t remember exact details from this night. But I remember the call. I don’t remember running down the street, but I do remember saying to myself: “Why would Coons go to such great lengths just to do this?”

Because he’s a damn genius.

I used to be VERY outward and nutty consistently, but somewhere in 1996, his became more consistent and mine started to come and go as it pleases.

As I heard the well-done audio of his house being blown clear to Oz, I noticed there was nothing on the TV about it, but being a master of “what if?” thinking and scaring the crap out of myself was, and sometimes still is, commonplace (and even worse if someone nudges me), I thought that maybe the NWS just didn’t see it yet and put up a warning. At that point I blacked out and I remember nothing.

Way to go for the throat.

Long ago, before cell phones, when caller ID and *69 call-back were fine luxuries only seen in aristocratic telephony, prank calling was a great way to stave off the ennui of adolescence.

For years, Ryan A. (name withheld to protect the overtly guilty) was thought to be the greatest prank caller of all time for creating the legendary Suicide Hotline Routine:

Ryan A.:           [Haggard, frantic tone, near tears] “Hello… is this… the suicide hotline?”

Chump:            “No…”

Ryan A.:           “Damn it! I can’t do anything right!”

One stormy night, in the eleventh grade, I was cleaning my room, and sorting through what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to give to Salvation Army, when I stumbled upon a wooden train whistle from my childhood.

I knew what had to be done.

I grabbed our cheap-ass cordless phone, and unscrewed the antenna most of the way before calling Luc, who is highly astraphobic, and I knew this.

I called Luc when the storm was at its peak, and screamed:

“Dude! Get in your basement dude! Tornado warning dude! TORNADO WARNING!”

“What?” said Luc. I could hear him turn pale over the phone. It was priceless.

“Dude, there’s a supercell of storms that they’re tracking on Channel 35, it’s right over the ‘Boro and it’s headed your way!”

“Shit, oh shit…” said Luc. “How far is it?”

“Dude, you need to get to your base–,” I say, as I start blowing lightly into the train whistle. “–ment and…”

Then I start blowing into the train whistle fairly hard.

“Oh shit!” I screamed. “No! Fuck no! NOOOOOOOOO–” at that moment, I pulled the telescopic radio antenna out of the worthless-ass cordless phone that I had at the time, so the line crapped out into a torrent of static. Then I shut the phone off.

The phone immediately rang. I didn’t have caller ID, and I didn’t need it to know who it was. I dashed into the other room to unhook the answering machine before the fourth ring. Then I chuckled to myself, and went back to cleaning my room.

Luc’s house didn’t have a basement. I knew this. He ran full sprint in a torrential downpour down the street to his neighbors house, who did have a basement, and frantically banged on his door in hysterics. His neighbor, from what I was told., had to spend some time to convince Luc that there was in fact, no tornado. Luc walked home alone in the rain, knowing that he had been had. Rather than holding this against me, Luc bowed to my skill.

I’ve never prank called anyone since, because until someone, somewhere can top this story, there is simply no reason to do so.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t always painfully awesome. It took hard work, determination, and a good balanced breakfast. A big part of being painfully awesome is to be bold enough to face improbable odds, and to be content with who you are to the point where you can degrade yourself for the amusement of others. That’s what I’m about to do. I have too. This is considered by many to be the funniest thing ever written.

I met Erica in the first week of college, when we were watching movies with my friend and neighbor Steve Balsomico.  She became a member of the tight-knit group of movie buffs who assembled every Friday night to watch bizarre films in the Earp Hall lounge. She had that wonderful whacked-out Italian hair, you know, it looks kind of wavy and greasy, but it’s not either.  She also had the most spectacular, exquisite ass that I had ever seen — and I’m not even attracted to asses — but there was something about that ass that beckoned me.  It was a truly magical ass. We’d eat brunch together every weekend.  After several months of this, I thought I would ask her out.

So after spending several days trying to amass the testicular fortitude, I finally call Erica. I get her answering machine, and left a message, unaware that they did a Seinfeld on this very subject.  Erica was the first girl that I ever asked out, and I was nervous. I go with a simple:

“Hi, Erica? This is, uh…Ryan Coons, the Yellow Hat Guy, I was wondering if you could call me back at…”

Then it hit me –I’d never even given a girl my phone number before — and that’s what killed me. I had never given it out before, hell — I didn’t even know it! I called a girl, wanting to ask her out, and left a message, and I didn’t know my own home telephone number. I totally disintegrated:

“… call me back at…732-49…um…ah…um…oh…umahblahphenadadayeaaba (continues for twenty seconds, when the machine cut me off)…”

It was horrible. I dropped the phone and curled up into a fetal ball on the cold, cold tile — and somehow, when things could not possibly get worse, somehow they did. After five days go by, I hoped that she forgot about it or that her roommate deleted the message. From the many nights that have since followed, I have replayed this scenario over and over again in my mind, and I found that everything that could have possibly gone wrong did.

As I sheepishly approach her table for Saturday Brunch, she looked up from her sketchbook and told me: “I got your message.”

It gets worse. You see — I hate this story so much — Erica was actually in her room when I called. She was sleeping because she was groggy with the flu, and I woke her up.  I didn’t wake her completely up though, just awake enough to hear me babble into her answering machine, and to make her think it was all a bizarre dream. Well, at least until she woke up and found the message. She just laughed and laughed, and told me to my face while cracking up.

I was mortified.

We were still good friends, but it wasn’t the same, the magic was gone. At the end of the semester, when I went to resell my psychology book, I saw her in line, trying to resell her psychology book.  She told me that she was transferring to somewhere in Buffalo.  There was an awkward goodbye, and I never saw her again.