Stupid school tricks

I'm emotionally numb right now.

I'm in complete, absolute shock that a party that I've spent the past 15 years publicly criticizing would target me personally with a gambit that I've publicly criticized for just as long - and not even cover its tracks.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not too surprised they did what they did. I'm only shocked that they were dumb enough to leave evidence in plain sight.

At 4:21 PM today, the phone rang. I ran into my front room as the answering machine picked up the call. I heard what sounded like a recording of a man talking in a deep cartoon superhero voice. It started off, "This is Optimus Prime. Take a break from blogging and listen to me." The voice said that it's "moving into Kentucky."

Most of the recording seemed to be talking about Transformers (the popular toy and the cartoon that it spawned). It urged me to visit a website advertising an upcoming Transformers movie.

The answering machine stopped recording during the call, but I figured it must have been a telemarketer advertising Transformers products. I figured one of the blog sites I use must have sold my personal info to the Transformers people. Otherwise they wouldn't know I was a blogger.

In any event, I'm on the no-call list, and I didn't want to get any more calls from them. So I dialed *69 so I'd know what part of the country the call came from. I figured I'd block 'em if I had any room left on my block list.

When the phone company's *69 recording read the number, I was a little surprised to find it started off with 859, which is my own area code. And that the exchange happened to be in my county - which made it all the more suspicious.

I went online, typed the full number into Google, and what's one of the first pages that comes up? My former high school. A Catholic high school that I got expelled from 18 years ago is making stupid-ass recorded phone calls about Transformers to my home.

My heart raced, and my palms sweated.

I was in disbelief at what I was seeing.

Here's the deal: I got an unsolicited recorded phone call and traced it to a number that belongs to my first high school - a school that I've lambasted in my newsletter and on my website for years.

I know you would not believe me if I didn't record both the call and the *69 recording right after the fact. But I did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emXqOIcON_4

I'm not embedding the clip here, because I know my alma mater will cry "harassment!" But that's the link to the recordings.

I can hardly believe it either. Are the idiots who run my former high school that fucking stupid that they didn't think I'd save their calls?

What's their defense? They were caught red-handed this time. Their Transformers Underoos and hanging down around their ankles this time, and there's nothing they can do.

Are they going to make me see a shrink who says it's all in my head when the proof is in plain view? They've got no defense this time. None. They're screwed.

After years of listening to repeated denials that this is even going on, how does one react when the proof finally appears in plain sight, before God (or whatever you believe in) and everyone? I'm too shocked to know what to do.

Not like the proof does much good in court, because the system has covered for this so-called school for decades. If that wasn't the case, my former school wouldn't be dumb enough to risk being fined hundreds of dollars for phone harassment.

I'm in less disbelief than I'd be in if I hadn't seen how teen confinement centers (like the one targeted by our roadside protests) specifically pursue individuals who are their most vocal critics. If teen programs can do this, why wouldn't schools do it too? Nobody has publicly criticized my former school anywhere near as much as I have.

And the school absolutely cannot stand it when I criticize it. They hate it.

I still want to know what connection my former school has to the other parties who I've gotten harassing calls from - including Citizens United and an assortment of local businesses and individuals. Because my number is unlisted, I'm also wondering how they got that.

Verdict: guilty. Now I know the school is guilty, and anyone who clicks on the clip knows it too - unless they're so in denial that they're delusional.

My old high school has got to be much more desperate than I thought. Making bizarre calls like this isn't what people do when they're in the right frame of mind.