This page ©2001
Chip Brown.

Talk Box

It always happens. The few times in my life I ever call anybody (at least twice a year) I always get one of those blasted answering machines.

"Thank you for calling X and X company. All of our agents are busy answering other questions. Your business is important to us..etc."

My call may be important to them I'm not sure. Somehow I feel if it was actually important they'd be answering the phone in person instead of letting this transistorized rat trap do it.

But that's okay, I can always wait. I mean, who doesn't like listening to 80's music in the year 2001? I mean we've all actually wanted to get physical with Olivia Newton John haven't we? I just love hearing her sing it to me over and over while I'm on hold. Yeah, if I could get ahold of the guy that sold me this computer I'd be getting physical. Instead, I'm on hold with their tech support.

But the ones I hate are the ones that make you wait two hours and then decides not to take your call. It transfers you to another transistorized box that would like to hear your question.

"All of our agents are still busy, please leave a message and the first available agent will call you back."

Most people are pretty good at leaving messages, I'm not. My brain thinks, "leave your name and phone number and maybe a couple of sentences". Unfortunately, my mouth does not hear my brain. I leave my name, address, phone number and date of birth. Then I launch into a lengthy explanation that probably sounds on the other end like some guy calling them to read the Declaration of Independence.

I remember in those James Bond movies they'd hypnotize some guy and when he heard a phrase like, "the moon is blue" he'd quit his mild mannered job and go kill his congressman. I think somewhere in my life this happened to me.

The difference is my phrase is "leave a message". Oh, and I don't go kill people, I just start babbling on and on about stuff, that minutes later doesn't even make any sense to me.

Did you know that these machines will run out of tape? I do! They go beep beep beep and just hang up on you, and never record your message. Apparently, this machine is smart enough to realize that anyone that talks this long to a machine is an idiot. The machine therefore erases your ramblings to make room for the sane people that call.

I'll call the people back and ask, "didn't you get my message?" They tell me no, that some moron called and spent so much time talking to the machine it erased all the messages.

Sometimes I do this just for fun. I've called my friend, or former friend, and just rambled on to his machine about my medical conditions. I don't really have any medical conditions so I make a few up.

He's one of those important types who has a machine in his office. He told me once that he always plays his messages in front of clients to impress them.

Wonder how that client was impressed the day I called? I can see him sitting down and pressing play, hoping to impress this would be client. Then the guy (me of course) comes on the tape and starts rambling. I make sure to call him by name so he can't tell the client it was a wrong number.

Then I launch into my complaints about my hemmorhoids and how the cream he loaned me did no good. Then I finish off by reminding him that he promised to come over and rub my bunions.

Did you know the phone company can block someone from calling you from a certain number? I found that out after this call. Seems I can't call him any more.

I think I'll go down to the payphone and call his machine again. Maybe the machine can tell me why he isn't accepting my calls. And besides I need to ask him about a rash...

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