Related:

• Answering machines. Nowadays almost everyone has one, complete with a snappymessage of their own device.
  Wait for the beep and then read on. This is a short adaptation of Simon Butler-White's and Clive Archer's "could-be" phone messages released in Australian Cleo, August 1989....
• From Sourcebook Magazine, Summer 1990, by Dan Gutma
  Would the invention of the telephone ever have gotten off the ground if Alexander Graham Bell's first call had gone ....
• When I was taking a 300 level computer science class in college there was a girl in the class that was a good friend of mine
  he was one of those people that was accademiclly briliant with zero common scence....
• The Canonical List of Telephone Answering Machine Messages "Hi!
  I don't exist at the moment, but if you leave your message, name and number, I'll call you back when I am....
• Wary Klink Live-Pillory Clinton Wary: "Hello, welcome to Wary Klink Live.
  Tonight's guests will be First Lady elect Pillory Clinton....
• Odd that no-one mentioned the fun to be had with all the new and wonderful phone features available now.
  None of the below are truly destructive. Adjust gender as appropriate (women's lib be damned, I'm not going to type his/her, s/he every time)....
• I don't want to bore you with metaphysics, but how do you know this is an answering machine?
  Maybe it's a dream, or maybe it's an illusion, or maybe YOU don't really exist....
• Because I'm A Man... ** Because I'm a man, when I lock my keys in the car I will fiddle with a wire clothes hanger and ignore your suggestions that we call a road service until long after hypothermia has set in.
  ** Because I'm a man, when the car isn't running very well, I will pop the hood and stare at the engine as if I know what I'm looking at....
• cars and driving --- For a while I didn't have a car.
  .. I had a helicopter... no place to park it, so I just tied it to a lamp post and left it running....