Some phones, you could unscrew the covers on the microphone and the earpiece. And then you could just take the microphone out, because it wasn’t wired in, it was just a loose piece that sat on contacts kind of like AA batteries.
Before caller ID came along, call waiting and three-way calling were a new thing for a while. I had one of the old Mickey mouse phones, and you could unscrew and take out the microphone on that one. So me and a buddy would take the phone book, pick two numbers at random, and then using three-way calling I would call each one of them as quick as I could, and then listen in as two strangers called each other. You got arguments, and accusations, and a couple of times a guy hitting on a girl who had no idea how he got her number etc. blah blah. I was certain I was a prank genius.
Later I started getting a bit more inventive like having two pizza places call each other, etc. But the best one was, in the white pages I found a Mr so and so Junior, and a Mr so and so Senior. I made those two houses call each other, and both houses were full of people, and they got into a big argument over who called who and they kept passing the phone around saying hey let me let you talk to your dad he’ll tell you what’s up blah blah and we’re just sitting there laughing and laughing. That one went on a while.
Caller ID came along pretty soon after that and the fun was over.
Some phones, you could unscrew the covers on the microphone and the earpiece. And then you could just take the microphone out, because it wasn’t wired in, it was just a loose piece that sat on contacts kind of like AA batteries.
Before caller ID came along, call waiting and three-way calling were a new thing for a while. I had one of the old Mickey mouse phones, and you could unscrew and take out the microphone on that one. So me and a buddy would take the phone book, pick two numbers at random, and then using three-way calling I would call each one of them as quick as I could, and then listen in as two strangers called each other. You got arguments, and accusations, and a couple of times a guy hitting on a girl who had no idea how he got her number etc. blah blah. I was certain I was a prank genius.
Later I started getting a bit more inventive like having two pizza places call each other, etc. But the best one was, in the white pages I found a Mr so and so Junior, and a Mr so and so Senior. I made those two houses call each other, and both houses were full of people, and they got into a big argument over who called who and they kept passing the phone around saying hey let me let you talk to your dad he’ll tell you what’s up blah blah and we’re just sitting there laughing and laughing. That one went on a while.
Caller ID came along pretty soon after that and the fun was over.