Ha Ha. I remember party lines too. We free range kids used to get even with nosy pokers by just leaving the phones off the hook. They couldn’t use their phone to call anybody. Eventually they learned a lesson. Same thing worked back then for prank phone calls too.
Even if they hung up, as long as you kept the phone off the hook, the connection wasn’t broken, and they couldn’t make any more calls. They would scream really loud for us to hang up the phone-easy to ignore across the room.
What did your folks have to say about that one?