The "Ling Ling" Incident:

Technology all but killed one of my favorite past times.  Crank calls were a big part of my childhood and I even made crank calls as an adult.  Everyone was a potential victim, including my mom who I kept getting with the same stupid "kidnapped kid' scenario that I made up.  Now, caller ID and everything else we have on our phones pretty much identifies who is on the other end putting a stop to my reign of terror.

So I told you that in order to tell you this.  I had a stalker for a little while.  Things got pretty weird and I had to change all of my contact information and everything.  The stalker was persistent enough that I somehow figured they took control of my damned phone, so I traded my phone in and got a new number.

I transferred over all of my contact information and apps and then went about calling my friends in order to give them my new contact information.  As I rolled through my contact list, I finally came upon my good friend who owns a parking lot striping and parking lost sweeping business.  So, I gave him a call.

He didn't pick up the call.  That wasn't a mystery.  Tim is a busy guy and has about 100 things going at once.  But for some reason, as soon as my call went to voice mail, I knew I could probably get away with a crank call.  After all, he'd never seen or heard of this phone number.

Ring.... Ring.... Ring... click... "We are unavailable to take your call at this time.  Please leave your name and a message and we will call you back", the message said.  I chime in.  "Herro, this is Ling Ling from Ocean City Chinese Bistro.  I need parking rot painted.  I need handicapped parking and stlipes.  Don't call me back.  I am too busy.  Come by Friday or Saturday and give me estimate."  And then I hung up.  I figured the sound of my voice and my stupid ass, stereotypical white dude trying to act like a Chinese person would give it away.

A couple of days goes by.  I forgot all about the crank call.  I was just sitting there and my phone rang.  It was my buddy Tim.  I picked up the phone and tried to say hello, but before I could get a word out, he said "You're an asshole!"  I laughed but didn't know what he was talking about.  He said, "Yeah, I get this call from a Chinese guy named Ling Ling and he wanted me to come to the Ocean City Bistro and give him an estimate to paint their fucking parking lot.  I show up with one of my daughters to help me measure the place and this Chinese guy comes out and starts yelling at me.  I got him calmed down enough to listen to what I was telling him.  I told him, Ling Ling called and wanted an estimate from me to paint stripes in the parking lot.  I am here to give the estimate.  The guy looked me dead in the eye and said, "Ling Ling?  Who in the fuck is Ling Ling?  There is no god damned Ling Ling here."  Now I started laughing....

Tim continued, "Go ahead.  Laugh it up.  I'm standing there scrolling through my voice mail and I play him the message!  Now the guy is really pissed and told me to get the fuck off of his property."  Now I am laughing out of control.  Tim says, "I listened to the voicemail one more time in the truck trying to figure out who in the fuck this could have been and then Jessica said, "That's Brice".  So, was this you?"  I admitted it as soon as I could catch my breath.  Never in a million years did I think he would buy that piece of shit fake accent.

I think Tim and I are still friends.  He's still not allowed at Ocean City Bistro and I bet you $100 bucks he never, ever takes another call from Ling Ling seriously.