Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for December 13, 2019

What color polka dots?

The real Richard is not going to be happy.

Rat has a point.

Next time a telemarketing person call, he should sell them something equally worthless.

“No, that’ll do. Just drop it off at this address…”

The good news is that we all ready did that due to a paint flinging accident.

No pun with Gere ?

I would have asked for plaid

Q: What’s the difference between a porcupine and a Porsche?

In the movie “Ruthless People,” Danny Devito has another way to enjoy wrong numbers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVLNs3QsV48

Stephan must have a sad, curmudgeonly life! Maybe Christmas will bring some change!

Although two wrongs don’t make a right, it could teach that person a lesson next time.

Once when I was a kid, we got a series of wrong numbers at supper time from teenage boys calling and asking to speak to some girl. My dad answered the phone and he responded, “Oh, she broke her leg and we had to shoot her”. Not long after that we stopped getting wrong numbers at supper time.

Next time, Richard Rat should say, “You painted what? My God, I didn’t want it painted at all! My instructions were to go around back and paint my porch!”

Reminds me of this one:

An unemployed guy goes around a neighbourhood looking for odd jobs. At one house he calls on, the owner says, yeah, I could use some help, my porch needs painting and I haven’t got time. You think you can do that? The paint is out back in the garage, beside the car.

The guy gets the job done and knocks on the door again: “All finished.”

“What, already?” says the owner.

“Yep, gave it two coats. Oh, and by the way, it’s a Mercedes, not a Porch.”

Is this the party to whom I’m speaking ? …. Croc Power !

Now there’s a Porsche that could be easily spotted! :D

Might want to use Janis Joplin’s Porsche as a model. https://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/luxury/janis-joplin-porsche-auction/

I’m curious to know if an actual crime is being committed here.

Other than the one against fashion, of course.

I would do something like that, but then say, “Just kidding. You’ve got the wrong number” to end the conversation.

is Debbie there????

Pretty nasty thing to do to an innocent caller who happened to misdial (no one’s perfect!), and an even worse thing to do to the owner of the car. It doesn’t do anything to the thousands of spammers, scammers, and robocallers who are targeting us. But then, Rat’s a rat.

My phone number in Oakland ended in 3754, Dave’s pizzeria was 3755. If someone called after 10 pm, I’d tell them “Yeah, we’re open until 2.” Pre-delivery by everyone era.

OY! RAT sure lives up to his name

Reminds me of the old joke about the guy that hired a wino to paint his porch. When finished he knocks on the door to get paid and to thank the man for the work. On leaving he tells the owner, “By the way, that isn’t a Porsche, it’s a Mercedes.”

Messing with Porsche will cost you a pound of flesh.

Love it! Maybe I’ll do this next time I get a wrong number

“This is HE”

That dirty rat.

Is Stephan rebelling against the grammatically correct “this is he?”

See Dick Drive…

Now I know how to respond to wrong numbers. Thanks, Rat!

Had a wedding planner call me once. Her clients apparently gave my number as the contact number on a signed contract. It wasn’t a wrong number either, as the planner read the number back to me and it most definitely was mine. I didn’t succumb to the temptation but oh could I have had fun…

Now I’m waiting for the next wrong number call…..hehe

We regularly get calls for the local Panera, which is one digit off from our numbers. That’s not so bad. But one day, I got a voicemail from some doctor’s office trying to reach someone, and the number they left was worse than useless.

I used to be 1 digit off from an Arbys. 1 #$%^ kept calling back insisting that I was Arbys.

One time someone gave me a wrong number, which turned out to be a pay phone at a restaurant. The employee answering it was not happy. So I carefully looked at the number again, and dialed again, and the employee was even more mad this time.

I just found out yesterday that numbers assigned to pay phones at the time had a 9 in the first position of the last four digits. This is because 9 was the hardest number for operators to dial, so they wanted to park it onto phones that are rarely dialed to. It also took care of callers who tried to charge long distance numbers to a pay phone.

So I really want to know – what’s up with eliminating the Crocs? The best PBS strips included the Crocs! Did the PC police call for their demise or just what?

What a Dick Rat is ;)

What was that movie where they stole a jerk’s Porsche and painted flames on it and jacked up the rear end before returning to him.

I would have told them to paint “MAGA” in red on both doors……It would certainly ensure repeat business for the body shop

I’m going to try this misdirect on the next wrong number or Robocall.

Try answering, “Joe’s Morgue, free gift wrap this week!”

This retired Ma-Bell mid-manager would charge only a finder’s fee to determine the accidental called number. Then a minimum charge to remove the dots by driving the car through Rat’s house.

Rat is Chatic Evil without a doubt.

I’ve heard stories of my old man as a teen answering the phone, typically thinking it was one of his friends and trying to get a chuckle out of them. The funniest one…. well first off my grandmother was working in a Catholic hospital at the time so how dad answered was a bit of a no no. “Hello Bob’s abortion clinic. You ******* ‘em, we’ll scrape ’em.” A half a heart beat as he’s going ah ****** in his head and then “Hello Mother Superior, yes I’ll get her.” Needless to say grandma was mortified that dad had said that bit to the Mother Superior and I bet at the time she tanned his hide for it. Years later she could laugh about it without saying what he said, only that it was the Mother Superior on the other end of the line and that what he’d said had really caused her to hesitate a little.

My brother answered my Mom’s phone. People thought they had Pizza Hut. He took their order. They asked how much. He said $10. They said why so cheap. He said because they are day old pizzas. He did tell them they had the wrong number.

One of the pizza chains always gets the phone number area exchange 3232 if they possibly can. Where my mother lived, when they came to town, therefore, they tried to buy her phone number from her by offering her free pizza for a year. She, correctly realizing that her phone number was worth more than all their pizza she would eat (none), turned them down. As a result, she usually got two or three calls a night trying to order pizza. She was polite if they called once, and factual if they called twice (as far too many of them did). And downright scathing if they called three times. Once, when several sibs were visiting, my sister answerd. She politely said they had a wrong number. They called back within 15 seconds and she said “Dominos!† How can I help you?”… we were all listening… after a few moments she said “Yes, we can do that. About half an hour. If you pick it up yourself, we’ll give you a second one free! … Yes, we are running a promotion… Absolutely! Please tell them that Gretchen took your order. Thank you for calling Dominos!†”

We were all rolling around on the floor, laughing by then. Though imagining the scene half an hour later was the best part.

† I really don’t recall if it was Dominos or some other chain. Like my mother, I don’t eat that kind of pizza, so the name didn’t stick.

Rat’s system is naughty, but far more fun than Goat’s….

Oh I HAVE TO DO THAT SOMETIME!

Ummmmm, call history?

400th like!

Maybe rat’s name is Richard.