Vicky was attending a business conference out of town.
During a short break between sessions, she decided to check in with her family and placed a collect call home.
Back at the house, her six-year-old son picked up the ringing phone. A calm operator’s voice came through the line:
“We have Vicky on the line. Will you accept the charges?”
The boy froze. His eyes widened.
In his young mind, the words took on an entirely different meaning. He dropped the phone, heart pounding, and tore through the house in a panic.
“Dad!” he screamed. “They’ve got Mum—and they want money!”
“Hello. Hi Honey. This is daddy. Is mommy near the phone?”
“No daddy. She is upstairs in the bedroom with uncle Paul.”
After a short pause, daddy says: “but honey, you don’t have an uncle Paul.”
“Oh yes, mommy says I do and he is upstairs with mommy in the bedroom right now.”
After a short time daddy says: “Okay, then this is what I want you to do. Put the phone down on the table, run upstairs and knock on the bedroom door and scream that daddy’s car just pulled into the driveway.”
“Okay daddy, just a minute.”
A few minutes later the little girl comes back on the phone.
“I did it daddy.”
“And what happened honey?” daddy asked.
“Well, mommy got all scared, jumped out of the bed with no clothes on and ran around screaming. The she tripped over the rug, hit her head on the dresser and now she isn’t moving at all.”
“Oh my God!!!! And what happened to your uncle Paul?”
“He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too. He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window and into the swimming pool. But I guess he didn’t know that you took out the water last week and cleaned it. He hit the bottom of the pool and I think he is d*ad.”
*Long pause …*
The daddy says,
“Swimming pool? …. Is this 486-5731?”
