Is Your Refrigerator Running?

You know the answer. I know you do.

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

**I wrote and posted a similar version of this piece on my previous blog some time ago, but the sentiment still stands.**

“Is your refrigerator running?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you'd better go catch it!”

Click.

Sound familiar?

If you, like I, grew up in a time that predated call display and other buzzkills, you know how this conversation goes. In a time that predated advance knowledge of who the heck was calling you, it was a great way to spend an afternoon.

Harassing strangers and laughing about it after the fact: what’s not to like?

But seriously - these words “is your refrigerator running” - were uttered too many times to count to too many unsuspecting strangers who existed on the other end of the (home/landline) phone. And who was doing all of this evil dialing? Hand up, over here. Guilty.

One of the staples of being a kid in the 1970s, “prank calling”(or “crank calling” depending on where you lived) was one of the more popular pastimes of youth. We were young. We were…