The Greatest School Prank Ever!(Even Better--It Was Done By a Parent)

Via Dave Barry's Blog comes one of the funniest stories I've read all week: A school district in Maryland used the common practice of sending a robo-call out to parents to alert them to a late start on a snowy day recently. But thanks to a glitch of some sort, the calls came out at 4:30 in the morning! One parent in that district, Aaron Titus, annoyed by the early wake-up, plotted his revenge: He got a list of publicly-available phone numbers for every district official that he could find, and he set up a program to robo-call them at 4:30 a.m. as well:

"This is a Prince George's County School District parent, calling to thank you for the robocall yesterday at 4:30 in the morning. I decided to return the favor. While I know the school district wanted to ensure I drop my child off two hours late on a snow day, I already knew that before I went to bed. I hope this call demonstrates why a 4:30 a.m. call does more to annoy than to inform.''

It ended: "Quit robocalling parents at 4:30 in the morning or at least allow us to opt out of these intrusive calls."

Thankfully, the message was duly noted in fairly good humor by school officials:

School board member Edward Burroughs III said he had not personally gotten one of Titus's robocall rebukes, but considered it "very clever."

"I definitely appreciate his creativity," he said.

On a more serious note, Burroughs said that "I think, in the future, if we know the night before, we need to make the call the night before." Ten o'clock or so may seem late, he said, "but 4:30 in the morning?"

The robocall, he concluded, made a point. "It's certainly something that I welcome all parents to do - communicate with us, by any means necessary," he said.

I'm sure that Titus is a hero to anyone who thought about pulling off such a prank, but was afraid to do so. Chalk one up for the little guy...