1999
My Crazy Grandma and Her Magical Mystical Telephone

When my grandma moved in, we tried call waiting. You just try explaining call waiting to a 74 year old woman.

When it beeps, you have to push this button.
“Which button?”
This button. It means someone else is calling you.
“Who’s calling me?”
You have to push the button to find out.
“This button? There’s no one there!”
You have to wait until it beeps.
“The phone doesn’t ring anymore?”
Yes, it rings, but it also beeps.
“Which button again?”

So we gave her a private line instead. This went well at first. But then she began calling my phone. She called me all the time. Not just once or twice a day, but all the time. When I was on the toilet, when I was necking with my boyfriend, when I was asleep, she would call. Sometimes she asked for my uncle, or a cousin. Sometimes she just said, “Oh, you’re home,” and hung up.
I think she noticed how tiresome this was getting for me, because she stopped calling. At least I thought she had stopped calling. But she hadn’t.

My grandma had started prank calling me.

It began like this: The phone would ring, I’d pick up, and all I’d hear were blaring Spanish talk shows in the background. It was a great mystery…until star 69. The next time that rapscallion Spanish-talkshow-watching-prank-caller struck, I phoned right back only to hear my grandmother’s soft wrinkly voice answering ever-so-innocently, “Hello?”

So I confronted her right then and there.

Did you just call me?
“No.”
Are you sure?
“I’m sure.”
Because I just did a star 69.
“A what?”
A star 69. It means that I can call back the last person who called me.
“I can do that too.”
But I don’t have to know who it is.
“Why would you want to call someone you didn’t know?”
Because some people call and hang up. Why did you call and hang up?
“I didn’t call.”
Are you sure?
“Yes. I’m sure. Are you hungry?”
Well, you must have a magic telephone, because star 69 doesn’t lie!
“There’s rice in the kitchen.”

So I simply had to resign myself to the idea that my grandma had free reign when it came to prank calls. In time I accepted this bothersome truth. I even stopped calling back, because it cost like fifty cents. I guess when you’re old and you have a magic telephone, you’re allowed to do whatever the hell you want.