Voice Mail
I’m fed up. Sick of it. And today was the day it was going to change.
What was getting the axe? Any one of my more abrasive qualities? Fear and angst? My seven-year-old shoes? No. I’m sick of my voice mail message. So plain. So boring. So utterly without zazz. But today was the day I was going to change it.
I wanted to have a deep, soulful voice mail message, something that would cause the caller to have a two-to-three second reevaluation of the self before leaving their message. Something that would make them stop and say “Wow. I’ve never known myself better than I do now, and I should leave a message after the beep.” But what does someone not particularly known for his depth or soulful-ness do? Why, give the illusion of those qualities by doing a musical number. And what music is more soulful than Soul? Why none, but, what does someone lacking the baritone for Soul do? The next best thing, Folk music:
[Acoustic guitar strumming]
Whoa,
Say yeah, yeah,
Whoa.
[Acoustic guitar strumming for additional six minutes]
BEEP
So I was feeling it a bit too much on my first attempt. I tossed the drugs I was using to obtain the authentic folk music sound and waited until the effects became negligible (Spongebob sharply declines in hilarity), then tried again:
[Acoustic guitar strumming]
I had a dream.
A dream so wild, so free of care,
I did not wonder how or where,
In what way or who or when,
I had to feel that way again,
[Guitar music crescendos]
I would travel any distance, I would leap any height,
Cross towering mountains, with peaks all of white,
Or fields many acres, or oceans so blue and deep,
Ryan’s not at home, leave a message at the beep.
BEEP
The musical approach wasn’t working. I needed something that would make people reanalyze their values, and since doing that the positive way wasn’t working, I decided to go with something that would scare the beejesus out of them:
Hello, you’ve reached Matthew Henderson. I’m not around to take your call, so leave a message.
BEEP
I couldn’t get my voice gravelly enough for that one, so I nixed it. I had another plan. A wise man once said that brevity is the soul of …eh, something. So I tried the plain and simple route to see if minimalism was the right thing for my answering machine:
Hey, this is Ryan. Not around. You know the drill.
BEEP
…It wasn’t bad, really. But I was sure I could do better. If I was going to have a simple message, I wanted to distill it to its most pure form, cut all spurious words and syllables. So I tried again:
Ryan gone. Leave words.
BEEP
Some found this a bit cryptic, though. So, lapsing into despair, I re-lit/snorted/dropped/injected the ingredients for authentic folk music sound again, this time sans the music, sound, or folk parts. Once my judgment was significantly impaired, I watched kung fu movies for a few hours, and became convinced that it would be a good idea to “dub” a voice mail message. So, I translated a message into Japanese on babelfish, then translated it back into English, and voila:
Ryan is travel, thus in his going there will be much message to leave, number your name as there is beep and he will reach for you at better times. The day is good!
BEEP
I’ve noticed that, as a genre, the couple’s answering machine message is both grating and wildly popular. My engrish message was giving people seizures, so I decided to give this new one a try. One major obstacle was the whole couple part. Lacking a significant other, or even an insignificant other, such as a puppet, imaginary friend, or Torke-esque multiple personality, it seemed a hopeless cause. But even the most daunting of hurdles can be overcome with creative solutions:
Ryan: Hey, this is Ryan,
Female voice: And this is Sandy!
Ryan: Neither of us are around to take your call,
Sandy: So we’ll get back to you as soon as we can,
Ryan: If you leave a message after the-
Together: Beep!
[Silence]
Sandy: Where’s my fifteen bucks?
Ryan: Will you wait till I press the goddamn button?
Sandy: I want my money.
[Sounds of struggle]
Ryan: Argh! Uncle! Uuunnncccll-
BEEP
After the hospital determined that my knife wound was “cosmetic”, my cowardly screams during my prior message reminded me of one of my uncles. We all have that uncle, right? Spends most of his time in a drunken stupor or a bitter hangover? So I tried the angry drunk phone message:
[Coughing]
Oh, Jesus. I don’t need any…
[Guzzling sound, Weeping]
Any…gizmos to tell me whose speakin’. You know, if I wanted to talk, you should just talk to me. To my face! Like a man! Cause that’s how I talk, is in person. I’m a man! Oh, god…
[Loud thud. Vomiting sounds, punctuated by cries of “I’m a man!”]
BEEP
Clean up was horrendous, not to mention the man from the scholarship office did not see the artistic merit in the message’s craft.
So to review:
Phone message: Still zazz-less.
Scholarship: “Rescinded and Redistributed to More Stable Applicants.”
Arm: Cut by shady transient willing to record phone messages for money.
Money: Going towards bail for imbibing various substances for authenticity purposes.
Voice: Still lacking in necessary baritone.
Pride: Irreparably damaged.
Folk music: Irreparably damaged.
Shoes: Going on eight-years-old.
Matt: Pissed.
Uncle: Pissed, in different way.
Spongebob: Sharply declining in hilarity.
European Union: Gradually becoming a major global superpower.
What was getting the axe? Any one of my more abrasive qualities? Fear and angst? My seven-year-old shoes? No. I’m sick of my voice mail message. So plain. So boring. So utterly without zazz. But today was the day I was going to change it.
I wanted to have a deep, soulful voice mail message, something that would cause the caller to have a two-to-three second reevaluation of the self before leaving their message. Something that would make them stop and say “Wow. I’ve never known myself better than I do now, and I should leave a message after the beep.” But what does someone not particularly known for his depth or soulful-ness do? Why, give the illusion of those qualities by doing a musical number. And what music is more soulful than Soul? Why none, but, what does someone lacking the baritone for Soul do? The next best thing, Folk music:
[Acoustic guitar strumming]
Whoa,
Say yeah, yeah,
Whoa.
[Acoustic guitar strumming for additional six minutes]
BEEP
So I was feeling it a bit too much on my first attempt. I tossed the drugs I was using to obtain the authentic folk music sound and waited until the effects became negligible (Spongebob sharply declines in hilarity), then tried again:
[Acoustic guitar strumming]
I had a dream.
A dream so wild, so free of care,
I did not wonder how or where,
In what way or who or when,
I had to feel that way again,
[Guitar music crescendos]
I would travel any distance, I would leap any height,
Cross towering mountains, with peaks all of white,
Or fields many acres, or oceans so blue and deep,
Ryan’s not at home, leave a message at the beep.
BEEP
The musical approach wasn’t working. I needed something that would make people reanalyze their values, and since doing that the positive way wasn’t working, I decided to go with something that would scare the beejesus out of them:
Hello, you’ve reached Matthew Henderson. I’m not around to take your call, so leave a message.
BEEP
I couldn’t get my voice gravelly enough for that one, so I nixed it. I had another plan. A wise man once said that brevity is the soul of …eh, something. So I tried the plain and simple route to see if minimalism was the right thing for my answering machine:
Hey, this is Ryan. Not around. You know the drill.
BEEP
…It wasn’t bad, really. But I was sure I could do better. If I was going to have a simple message, I wanted to distill it to its most pure form, cut all spurious words and syllables. So I tried again:
Ryan gone. Leave words.
BEEP
Some found this a bit cryptic, though. So, lapsing into despair, I re-lit/snorted/dropped/injected the ingredients for authentic folk music sound again, this time sans the music, sound, or folk parts. Once my judgment was significantly impaired, I watched kung fu movies for a few hours, and became convinced that it would be a good idea to “dub” a voice mail message. So, I translated a message into Japanese on babelfish, then translated it back into English, and voila:
Ryan is travel, thus in his going there will be much message to leave, number your name as there is beep and he will reach for you at better times. The day is good!
BEEP
I’ve noticed that, as a genre, the couple’s answering machine message is both grating and wildly popular. My engrish message was giving people seizures, so I decided to give this new one a try. One major obstacle was the whole couple part. Lacking a significant other, or even an insignificant other, such as a puppet, imaginary friend, or Torke-esque multiple personality, it seemed a hopeless cause. But even the most daunting of hurdles can be overcome with creative solutions:
Ryan: Hey, this is Ryan,
Female voice: And this is Sandy!
Ryan: Neither of us are around to take your call,
Sandy: So we’ll get back to you as soon as we can,
Ryan: If you leave a message after the-
Together: Beep!
[Silence]
Sandy: Where’s my fifteen bucks?
Ryan: Will you wait till I press the goddamn button?
Sandy: I want my money.
[Sounds of struggle]
Ryan: Argh! Uncle! Uuunnncccll-
BEEP
After the hospital determined that my knife wound was “cosmetic”, my cowardly screams during my prior message reminded me of one of my uncles. We all have that uncle, right? Spends most of his time in a drunken stupor or a bitter hangover? So I tried the angry drunk phone message:
[Coughing]
Oh, Jesus. I don’t need any…
[Guzzling sound, Weeping]
Any…gizmos to tell me whose speakin’. You know, if I wanted to talk, you should just talk to me. To my face! Like a man! Cause that’s how I talk, is in person. I’m a man! Oh, god…
[Loud thud. Vomiting sounds, punctuated by cries of “I’m a man!”]
BEEP
Clean up was horrendous, not to mention the man from the scholarship office did not see the artistic merit in the message’s craft.
So to review:
Phone message: Still zazz-less.
Scholarship: “Rescinded and Redistributed to More Stable Applicants.”
Arm: Cut by shady transient willing to record phone messages for money.
Money: Going towards bail for imbibing various substances for authenticity purposes.
Voice: Still lacking in necessary baritone.
Pride: Irreparably damaged.
Folk music: Irreparably damaged.
Shoes: Going on eight-years-old.
Matt: Pissed.
Uncle: Pissed, in different way.
Spongebob: Sharply declining in hilarity.
European Union: Gradually becoming a major global superpower.