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Anyone for the hot line?

By: Wayne Smith
March 17th 08

At six years of age I was a little cautious with members of the opposite sex. My mother’s ominous warnings to me regarding pre marital affairs were enough to instill respect.

By the time I was fourteen mother’s voice had grown faint. Another small distant voice began to ring in my ear, Find me, call me, it began to whisper through the buzz and clatter of daily life.

Distant urgings persisted in other young men of my age, and one day a good friend called me on the phone sounding quite excited.

“Hey Wayne said Gary, what are you doing? Want to come over to my house and check out this new phone service?”

“Sure I said what is it?”
“It’s called the Hot Line, you can get a date!”

O HHO, this sounded dangerous, I thought. I could see mother’s wooden spoon waggling somewhere overhead.

We had never had a date. How to find one and what to do with a date was all new territory for us, still I was curious.

“My folks are away this weekend, coaxed Gary see if you can come stay over night. Further rumblings of distant warning followed me as I asked mother if I could sleep over at Gary’s Saturday night. Permission granted, I was let of with a reprimand,
“Don’t get into any mischief”

Gary’s hot line phone service sounded interesting in beginning. We began our quest to find a date about 7 pm Saturday evening. Seated together at Gary’s kitchen table Gary explained his date finding system.

All we had to do is call this phone number, and yell your phone number into the receiver, then hang up and a girl will call us back.

To me it sounded weird and to this day I am not sure how it was suppose to work.

When we dialed the number, we heard through a slight hiss and clatter, very faint voices calling out what seemed like phone numbers. The voices and numbers were all mixed up. Suddenly 92936 would crackle through a Babble of voices. Then another voice would blend in over top with 291 finally to be lost in the hiss.

The promised date seemed more and more distant with our every effort to be heard. We continued reciting Gary’s phone number over and over again into the receiver. Returning the receiver only to wait in vain.

“Got it we yelled to a far away voice”
“Ya hang up it replied”
And so it went until nearly midnight. In desperation we added my phone Number. Who knows maybe I can get a dated too I thought.

Slowly our dreams of Platinum blond bombshells arriving for a evening of fun and love began to fade.
“I don’t know I said there must be an easier way to get a date”
“Well it worked for Jim down the street, said Gary, he got a date .

Feeling a bit frustrated we both went to bed thinking the whole thing a bit of a farce. Saying no more about the incident I left Gary’s house the next morning and walked home.

I never gave the affair another thought until dinner time the next evening. I was seated alone for a moment with mother at the kitchen table. She suddenly looked seriously at me for a moment.

“Something strange happened last night she began, we were getting phone calls from girls.”
“Really is said”
“Yes, until well after midnight. You don’t know anything about it do you?”
“No, I lied, my face buried in my desert”
“Well she continued, they were asking if there was anyone here for the hot line!”