When I was in pre-school, I became obsessed with answering the telephone. My parents taught me that, if I was going to be a big girl and answer the phone, there were three pieces of information to address:

1) Tell them who I was
2) Ask who was calling
3) Ask who they were calling for

Ever the literalist, I would clamber to answer the phone whenever it rang, using my best 4-year-old secretary voice to say “Hello! ThisisArielMeadowStallings, whoisthis, andwhowouldyouliketoSPEAKto?” as quickly as I possibly could. The word speak got the extra hard, unnatural inflection of someone who really didn’t have any idea what she was saying.

Typically, the response was a friend of my parents’ saying, “Hi, Ariel. This is Susan, and I’m calling to talk to your mom.”

But one summer afternoon in 1980, right before I started kindergarten, the phone rang.

“Hello! ThisisArielMeadowStallings, whoisthis? andwhowouldyouliketoSPEAKto?”

“Hi, Ariel,” said the voice on the other end of the line. And that was all.

I tried again: “Hello! ThisisArielMeadowStallings, whoisthis? andwhowouldyouliketoSPEAKto?”

The voice was being uncooperative. I was getting frustrated, so I tried one more time.

“Hello! ThisisArielMeadowStallings, whoisthis? andwhowouldyouliketoSPEAKto?”

“What are you doing right now, Ariel?” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

I was flustered, but frank. I was an only child doing what all only children do when their mother is wandering around in the garden, and you’re bored: I’d made up some game that involved rocks and sticks or something, and was entertaining myself by making them talk to each other. I was, in other words, playing by myself.

But what I said was this: “I’m playing with myself.”

(Note to parents of pre-schoolers: teach your children the subtle contextual difference between playing by yourself, and playing with yourself.)

The middle-school aged boy on the other end of the phone had clearly hit the jackpot of crank callers, and must’ve been so pleased to say, “Oh, yeah? I’m playing with MYself, too!”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but even then I knew creepy when I heard it, so I did something I’d never done before: I hung up on someone.

Afterwards, my mother explained that some people play jokes with the telephone, and that it was called crank calling.

Then I knew.

Update: It’s worth reading the comments for my dad’s memory tidbit of me on the phone at age 4.