Wrong number?

Joshua's cell number used to belong to some low life named Melissa.  I say low-life, because he is plagued by calls from loan and debt collectors who leave messages on his phone, disturb him during school hours, and in general, make pests of themselves. I've taken a few calls to ask them to remove his number from their database (bad idea, since I am a female, and they don't seem to believe I'm not Melissa).  On our side, I keep offering to change his number, but he keeps insisting that I don't. "No. It's o.k.  Everyone has my number, it'd be a hassle to change it."  Sure I'm Mom, and I could just do it for him, but I also respect his desires to not go through the hassle. If it were more than a large annoyance, I'd change it in a heartbeat. 

In reality, I really should have changed it when he got the phone two years ago, but at the time, I figured it would only last a month or two, and after that, they'd get the hint they have the wrong number.  It usually works that way. But we recently figured out, the scum woman is still giving out the number!  Just after the first round of calls had started dying down, Josh suddenly started getting new onslaught of collection calls from different companies.

Today, we were packing up for our last day to sit on the beach, when he answered his phone in a 'Scottish' accent.  The rest of the family became really quiet, nosy even, as we stood looking at him for awhile while he talked to the person on the other side. "No. I have no idea who this Melissa person is," He said, completely in character.  He listened for a few minutes while the person on the other side apologized, and told him she'd note the number was a bad one.

As he hung up, and I said, "What was that all about?"
"The Scottish Accent?" he asked, tucking his phone into his pocket. "I thought I'd mix it up a bit."

"If I made a movie..."

We were strolling leisurely back to our vacation rental, ice cream in hand (or Italian ice in my case, thank you milk allergy) satisfied after a good competitive game of miniature golf.

"So, this was nice, wasn't it?" I asked the family.
"YEAH." Joshua said, emphatically, "It sure beats sitting at the condo listening to music or watching bad girl teen dramas on television."
"Or Animal Planet."
"Thank you, Joshua, " I said, "for wrestling the remote from your sisters this afternoon."
"I KNOW!" He said, "I couldn't take 'Victorious' one more second. I mean, all those shows are the same!"
"HEY!" piped up Ruth. "I LIKE Victorious."
"But the plot is always the same: 'I'll hook you up with one of my friends and then it will all go wrong and in the end we should have just talked about it anyway," Joshua said in his 'girly voice' impression.
"Soooo," Ruth said.
"Oh, and 'GUY' shows and movies don't have the same plot?!?" I asked. "Oh, let me chase the bad guy in a car, and then shoot everyone, but I'm the good guy so I won't get even a graze when the bad guys shoot at me with automatic weapons, and in the end something HUGE has to be blown-up: a skyscraper, a helicopter, a 747..."
"Actually," Jeremy interrupted, "It's more like, the bad guy tries to kill the good guy with some elaborate and overly complicated scheme and then says 'Well, since you're going to die anyway, let me tell you my nefarious plans,' and then he leaves allowing five or more hours for the good guy to escape when in reality a bullet to the head would have allowed him to continue on in his evil merry ways."
"This is true," I replied.
"And in fact," Jeremy continued, "It's been documented there are only so many plots in the world, and everything is a variation within."
"Really?" The kids asked.
"So they say," Jeremy said.
"But what if I came up with my own plot?" Ruth asked.
"It would still be a variation of one of those documented," I replied, "According to this theory."
"Not if I made a movie," Hannah chimed in. "If I made a movie, it would be totally random. It'd start with a picture of lard, and then there'd be a duck, and it might come and eat the lard. I'm not quite sure about that part just yet."
"Yup, That'd be totally random, Hannah," I said.
"Did she said Lard?!?" Ruth asked.
"Lard?" Joshua said.
"And a duck," Hannah said. "Don't forget the duck."

A few moments of silence...

It was late, and we were driving home from the mega-monster-club-warehouse-store. The night was cool, the windows down, and the night sounds might have been floating into our car, for all we knew. The noise in the van was nearly over-powering. The children were wild and rambunctious, due to excitement over the up and coming vacation. We also knew the girls were over-tired. It was almost ten o'clock, and an hour past bed-time. But Jeremy and I let them burn off their energy, knowing the girls would crash the minute they got home. Josh, on the other hand, being the night-owl that he is, was just amping up.

"Dadddddddy! Mamaaaa! Joshua is poking me from behind and I DON'T like it!" Ruthie whined from the back of the van. "Tell him to STOP."
"Well, Ruth, did you ask him to stop?" Jeremy asked her.
"Yesssss." She drew out the word.
"Josh, did your sister ask you to stop?"
"Yeah," came the sheepish reply.
"Then Joshua, when we get home, I'm spanking you," Jeremy said sternly.

We heard crickets for about 30 seconds, the silence deafening.

"BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Jeremy and I started to laugh so hard we could hardly contain ourselves. The back of the van broke out in that nervous "hahaha we knew you were joking...hahaha" kind of laughter.

Jer wiped his eyes and said, "Oh man. I just couldn't hold it straight any longer than that. That was awesome. The silence. chirp chirp. chirp chirp. It was so quiet you really COULD hear the crickets outside. Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahaa"

A disgruntled Joshua called from the back, "I should have KNOWN you were joking. I was like "What the heck?!?' in my head. I can't believe I fell for that."