[38] in Humor
HUMOR: Dave on voice mail (rerun)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Mon Jan 31 11:39:08 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 11:37:15 EST
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 94 13:39:38 PST
From: ckleinja@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
VOICE MAIL AND OTHER BRIGHT IDEAS FROM THE PHONE COMPANY
by Dave Barry (1992)
Q. Can you explain how Electronic Voice Mail works?
A. To find out how Electronic Voice Mail works, please select Answer One.
Q. How do I do that?
A. To find out how to select Answer One, please select Answer Two.
Q. OK, I select Answer Two.
A. To select Answer One, say "I select Answer One."
Q. I select Answer One.
A. Say "Pretty please with sugar on top."
Q. TELL ME THE ANSWER RIGHT NOW OR I'LL STRANGLE YOU WITH THIS TELEPHONE
CORD.
A. Voice Mail is a system that has been developed to eliminate the
irritation of being placed on "hold" by large companies and replace it
with the irritation of having an electronic voice that sounds like your
grandmother after an unsuccessful brain operation ask you a series of
multiple-choice questions that you must answer correctly if you wish to
speak to an actual human being, who will place you on "hold."
Q. Is the telephone company developing any other new products or
services?
A. Yes. The telephone company is working night and day to turn your life
into a giant wad of convenience. Very soon, for example, you will be
able to obtain a new telephone service called "Call Preventing."
Q. How will that work?
A. To find out how that will work, say ...
Q. DON'T START THAT AGAIN.
A. "Call preventing" is an exciting new advance in communications,
whereby for a $22.50 additional monthly charge, your telephone company
will prevent anybody from reaching you by telephone.
Q. What happens if a person dials my number?
A. Nothing.
Q. What if it's an emergency, such as my mother is calling because she
needs me to drive her cat to the veterinarian because it's throwing up
critical organs and she doesn't want to mess up her own car; or my
child's day-care center is calling to inform me that my child got into a
dispute involving Play-Doh, and the other child involved is expected to
regain at least some of her hearing, but her father, a federal judge and
karate instructor, would urgently like to see me?
A. For situations like this, there will be a special Emergency Code that
the caller could dial.
Q. What would that do?
A. Nothing.
Q. What if I need to reach a party who has "Call Preventing"?
A. Then you'll want to purchase another exciting new telephone- company
service called "Call Stalking." With this service, which costs an
additional $39.50 a month, if the person you're calling fails to answer
for any reason -- such as that he is not home, or has moved and left no
forwarding address, or has entered the Federal Witness Protection
Program, or is in the Intensive Care Unit with tubes the size of garden
hoses in his nose -- the telephone company's computers, which keep track
of all Americans via tiny transmitters in our dental fillings, will
locate the person and instruct orbiting communications satellites to aim
beams of powerful microwave radiation directly into his brain, so that
every five seconds he'll hear a loud voice that sounds like Orson Welles
echoing inside his skull, saying: "YOUR NAME IS TRYING TO CONTACT YOU BY
TELEPHONE. PLEASE CALL YOUR NAME RIGHT NOW. THIS MESSAGE WILL BE
REPEATED IN FIVE SECONDS. THANK YOU."
Q. Wow.
A. For an additional $5 a month, the voice sounds like Olive Oyl.
Q. Is there any defense against "Call Stalking"?
A. Your best bet is "Call Handling," which was designed for when
companies randomly dial your number at dinner time and pretend to be
taking surveys when in fact they want to sell you things. With "Call
Handling," which costs an additional $49.50 per month, you simply notify
the telephone company that you do not wish to receive calls from these
companies.
Q. And then what happens?
A. The company owners are eaten by snakes.
Q. What about the people who invented "Voice Mail"?
A. Them, too.
Q. Slowly?
A. Yes.
Q. Good.
(C) 1992 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
