Phoney Phones

Nobody in Adams House has a phone yet, because of building renovations. So at least a few residents must have panicked Saturday morning upon reading notices in their mailboxes that phones would be installed in only half the rooms.

The letter, allegedly from Assistant to the Master Patricia Harrington, said that residents, "who feel that, for any reason, phones should be installed in their room instead of their neighbors' should explain their reason in no more than one typed page," and added that petitions were due by 5:00 p.m. that day.

However, residents soon learned that the memo was no more than a prank engineered by the Harvard Lampoon, a social club.

"At first I was outraged," Malka Goldberger '86 said yesterday. Goldberger hurried to her room after reading the notice to compose a letter of protest when her friend informed her that it was a prank.

Her reaction changed from one of anger to "total amusement," Goldberger recalled.

Harvard Lampoon editor Andrew C. Pforzheimer '83-'84 yesterday called the joke "amusing and harmless."

Pforzheimer, who said he invented the prank while sitting with a friend at Cahaly's, explained. "It was a day and half joke. Phones were going to be installed on Monday morning."

For most Adams House residents, however, the joke didn't seem to last for more than ten minutes. The phony petition box, situated in Adams House Dining Hall, contained several amusing responses.

One particularly generous student offered his telephone "in the true spirit of sharing."

Although most people soon realized the note was a prank. Reinier A. Cruz '84, who was working in the Adams House superintendent's office on Saturday, said he had to assure several students that it was a joke.

Although Cruz did not have an official word he added that he was certain that the letter was a prank.

"It was obvious for several reasons," Cruz explained. "First, there was no signature, only a typed name. Secondly, the House of fice doesn't operate on weekends."

Pforzheimer, a four-and-a-half year veteran of the Lampoon, said that ideas for pranks are often discussed and that members try to "weed out ones that are in bad taste."