Okay so, true Story from the late 90s. Back in the olden days, young people would leave rude, crude, and ridiculous messages on each other's answering machines. It was just funny to come home, listen to your messages, and get your buddy pretending to be calling from the sex shop about the shipment of extra large dildos that had just arrived sandwiched between a message from your mother and a doctor's office confirmation call. Bonus points if someone else was there when you checked the machine. That could be a real hoot! Here is where I note that I am particularly good at doing impressions and that I had a nice Sony cordless phone with a digital answering machine. High fucking tech. Anyway, I was leaving for school in another part of the country and as a farewell I was going to call my closest friend, Bad Ronald, and leave a message as Sean Connery. In order to hone my Connery voice, I used my phone as a recording and playback device. Much like your cell phone, you could use the outgoing memo on the answering machine (the part where you say "This is Ronky Boy's phone, leave a message") to quickly record and then immediately playback the message to see if you liked how it sounded. If not you can erase it and try agian. This is perfect if you are working on an impression. So, I recorded myself saying what I was going to say, and over numerous attempts, nailed down the majority of my James Bond message. I was just having trouble with one part. Three words. Pussy, pussy galore. It took me several more attempts to get those down as, clearly, they were the most important part. Each attempt I made three passes at it with slightly different inflection. PU-ssy, PU-ssy glaore. Pussy, pussy GA-lore. Pussy, pussy ga-LORE. You get the idea. I left the message on Bad Ronald's machine, finished packing my shit and left town a few hours later, just before sunup. But the story does not end there. No, for in the controlled chaos of the move, I forgot that I had Dirty Old Sean as my outgoing message. And before I was off to school in the fall, I moved back in with my parents to save up money. I moved into my old room and set up just some essentials for the couple of moths stay. The essentials included my phone and integrated digital answering machine. But being as it was my parents' house, I shut the answering machine part of it off. And off it remained. Until there was a power outage. When the power came back on it reset the settings on my phone. And the factory settings were set to fewer rings before the answering machine picked-up on my phone than my parents' phone. This meant that Dirty Old Sean was waiting to take your call. All of this went unnoticed for 2 days. It wasn't until my parents asked me if I had received any calls as they were expecting one in particular. I said no, but then it dawned on me that my phone may have intercepted the messages. So I went upstairs and sure enough, the little digital readout indicated I had 3 messages (I told you, high fucking tech) . Then it dawned on me that I hadn't changed my outgoing memo since I moved out of my apartment. With trepidation and more than a little giddiness I pressed play. Note: My parents' names are Walter and Moreen. Second Note: Those are not my parents' real names. They are innocent. I will protect them. FIRST MESSAGE A long silence followed by a confused male voice
SECOND MESSAGE Without missing a beat. Cheerful woman's voice
THIRD MESSAGE Woman's voice. Angry
...uhh, Walt? I'm not sure I have the right number. I, uh, I'm tryin' to... You know what -- I'm just gonna call back later.
Hello. This is Joanie with Dr. Frasier's office. We have an appointment for Moreen on 18th that we will need to reschedule at your earliest convenience. Please call us at 555-7583. Thank you and have a wonderful day.
That. Is. Disgusting!