Fun with Phones

Jim was the business leader of the band, and ran a successful outside business at the same time. This kept him on the phone constantly, and made him a target of many practical jokes. One night, we had a room adjacent to his, and hearing him constantly talking on the phone (through the wall) gave us an idea. We got a key to his room from the front desk, (unfortunately, it's not too hard to do), and waited until he went to dinner. We went into his room, and took the phone apart. We removed the tiny spring that makes the buttons come up when you pick up the receiver. Then we carefully reassembled the phone. Now, when it rang and Jim picked up the receiver to answer it, the buttons would stay down, and the phone would just keep ringing. Without tweezers to lift the buttons out of their holes, it would be almost impossible to answer the phone. Before leaving, we opened his drapes just an inch or so, so we'd be able to peek in from outside and watch the fun. Jim came back from dinner, plopped onto the bed with the TV remote, and started channel surfing. I dialed his room number, while Danny watched from outside. As expected, he picked up the receiver, and the phone kept on ringing. He poked at the holes a little, scratched his head, then just stood there and let it ring. I hung up, and he went back to bed to resume watching TV. After awhile, he drifted off to sleep, so we called again. He jumped up, forgetting the previous incident, and tried to answer the phone again. This time he got angrier, and slammed the receiver down. We let it ring an extra 15-20 times, just for fun. Having tortured him enough for one night, we left him alone. Knowing he would walk to the office in the morning to report the problem, (he couldn't exactly call to complain), we planned to go back in and fix the phone while he was gone. The next morning we were awakened at 6:00 a.m. by Jim's phone, ringing incessantly on the other side of the wall. His secretary was trying to reach him. Danny slipped outside and looked in, just in time to see Jim, in his underwear, holding the phone upside down and pounding it on the bedside table. He was cussing a blue streak and slamming the phone around, and it just kept ringing, taunting him. Danny stumbled back into the room, doubled over with laughter, then hurried with me into the hall, to wait for our chance to slip back in and undo our dirty deed. A few minutes later, Jim came out, briefcase in hand, and trudged toward the office. We slipped in, replaced the spring, and retreated to our room. Shortly, he was back with the hotel maintenance man, and we watched from outside as he tried to explain what was wrong with the phone. The repairman called the front desk, the desk called him back, and everything worked just fine. Jim insisted that the repairman swap the phone with one from another room, and though we were sorely tempted to dissect that one too, we called it a day, and headed off to find some breakfast.