Nov 222011
 

Got this email yesterday:

What a stupid fucking law!!I can’t believe my make-believe address isn’t good enough for these assholes after all these years.  (Year.)

I forwarded this email to Henry and he snapped. “Don’t fucking do that to me!” he shouted. “I saw ‘deactivated’ and panicked then saw it was just your stupid little game-playing.”

Unless I use a real, confirmable address, Manuel is going to be buried.  Let’s take some time now, bow our heads, finger our crosses, whatever.

In his honor, let’s remember how it all started:

After I posted about that relay calling service during Blogathon, I became determined to find a way to use it again. Especially since I had three prank calls to make in order to fulfill my donor obligations. Using a relay service to make pranks is the ultimate because you get to keep a transcript (which would be good to have as proof for my sponsors), and it’s extra hilarious having an unsuspecting operator do your dirty work. (Plus, it’s even more asshole-y.)

It’s law now that all those services make you register first. So I’m now Manuel Roberts from Maryland. I figure, I’ll use it every day to make normal calls to Henry, like “Please bring home the milk,” so that I can still slip in a few prank calls here and there without arousing suspicion.

I am that dedicated that I’m willing to make this a part of my daily routine. I even downloaded an app for my iPhone.

Yesterday, I had Manuel call Henry to alert him that Circa Survive is playing in Cleveland next November and that he should take his daughter, Erin. (Because why would a deaf person want Henry to go to a concert with them, I figured.) Henry, who is not annoyed by this AT ALL, couldn’t even understand what the foreign operator was telling him, but figured he wasn’t missing much.

Then I decided that Manuel and Henry are life-partners! So I make sure to end all conversations with “OK I love you.”

AnywayS (Alisha likes the extra “s”), I started out with Paul’s request to prank his friend/my e-friend Amelia. Please excuse the typos; it’s a very fast-moving process and I accidentally had it on the setting that automatically enters the text while you’re typing, which is annoying. Paul wanted me to take it as far as I was comfortable with, in order to make Amelia concerned. Usually, messages saying you’re in the hospital work pretty well. Especially when you’re unsure of who it is exactly that is in the hospital.

This was supposed to be a two-parter. I was going to call her the next day and pretend to be the “lady with the knife.” But then she saw my Blogathon post and busted me. It went something (exactly) like this:

Amelia: THAT WAS YOU?

Me:  I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.

Amelia: BUMMER ABOUT THE KNIFING BUT I’M GLAD THE CULPRIT WAS INJURED IN THE SCUFFLE.

Fuck.

Manuel left a testimonial on the relay site last night:

I just found out about this magic service last week. It is great especially since my TTY contraption was stolen on Christmas Day.

****

This morning, I was talking to Henry on the phone. He said, “I’m going to be on the road today, so don’t call me if it has anything to do with Jonny, Manuel, or anything else that’s dumb.” So of course I called him just now and immediately broke his freshly laid-down law by asking, “Do you think your mom will let Manuel use her address?”

It took a few seconds for Henry to process my request before he got all irritated and outrageously barked, “No, you’re not using my mom’s address! Use your mom’s address!”

I’ll be reposting Manuel Memories all week. God bless you, Manuel. You will be missed. Feel free to sign his funeral home guest book.

  4 Responses to “Let’s Pour One Out for Manuel”

  1. I cannot bear the thought of life without Manuel, even if his life partner has found another senor.

  2. you are wicked and funny which equals wickedly funny. Just saying…

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