STAN FREBERG HERE...Answering Machine Dilemma
Stan Freberg here. Where do old, defunct answering machines go? Somewhere, is there an answering machine graveyard? Why can't I get one that continues to work? Back after this. [:60 SPOT BREAK]
Freberg again. About those old answering machines: sooner or later, my current machine malfunctions, and ends up in the elephant's graveyard of answering machines under my desk. Let's see, I can see nine or ten down there...I keep kicking them to one side, hoping I'll get around to running them by some answering machine repairman. Is there such a person?
When I was small, a man would come around the neighborhood on a bicycle once a week and cry, "Knives sharpened! Scissors sharpened!" How about a man today crying, "Malfunctioning answering machines fixed!"? Dream on, Freberg.
My current Japanese machine runs pretty good, but I miss that digitized Asian voice that announced the time a call came in: "Fiiiiiiive-fiftytwo!" or "Niiiiiiiiine-thirtyfour!" One day that man stopped talking, and I never heard from him again.
One of the strangest things I recall about the Northridge earthquake was how, as I was running through the debris upstairs, I thought I heard a weird voice. I did - it was the tape on my answering machine, kicked on by the quake! "Hi, this is Jennifer returning your call, uh, I'll be in most of the day, um, no I won't, either..." babbling on and on, as things continued to crash off shelves.
Does it take an earthquake for my answering machine to work?
Stan Freberg here.
Copyright (C)1996, Stan Freberg/Freberg, Ltd. (but not very) Distributed by Dick Brescia Associates and Radio Spirits, Inc.