Maryland dad revenge-robocalls school board at 4am

It was only a matter of time before the parent of small children awakened by a school’s snow day robocall finally cracked, and parents across the nation are wishing they could line up to buy a beer for 31-year-old Aaron Titus of Fort Washington, Maryland.

Titus, a lawyer, has five kids in the house, one of whom is a newborn. As parents of very little kids know, sleep is a tightly guarded commodity, and grudges against people who wake a sleeping child are long and fiercely held. (I have an aunt who still complains about the time a friend of mine woke my cousin, and my cousin is currently a junior in college.) Titus was a bit pissed off when the phone in his house rang at 4:33 am during the recent snowstorm, informing families that schools were affected by a two hour delay. Undoubtedly, a fair few families were then stuck with cranky, awake children hours away from getting on the school bus.

Titus didn’t just bitch about it on the internet or write it down in his Hello Kitty notepad, however. He actually managed to contract with one of the odious companies who arranges for mass recorded telephone calls, and then got up on the Googles and found as many school board members as he could. Just after 4 am the following day, the following robocall went out to the people for which Titus was able to collect phone numbers:

“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.”

For their part, affected board members have had a pretty good sense of humor about the incident and one even told local press he admired Titus’ “creativity.” Now that everyone for the most part has access to the internet, is it time for schools to get over their attachment to parents’ landlines?