Creative answering machine recordings can be difficult to think of, so when I hear a fun message, I am impressed.
I love coming across unique new answering machine messages.
For my job, I call many people and reach a lot of answering machine messages. For the most part, people have fairly generic messages. There is nothing wrong with this I myself have one of these messages on my voice mail at work.
But once in awhile I will call someones home phone number or cell phone and it will be some bizarre message. Its great. Its refreshing. But also sometimes confusing.
My boyfriend is very talented when it comes to answering machine recordings. Ive thought about having him record my answering machine messages. Sometimes Ill call his house when I know hes at work so I can hear the message he has that day. He changes messages pretty often.
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In his answering machine message he will often have a riddle for someone to answer or some strange trivia. For example hes asked how many liters are in a Methuselah bottle? Please leave the answer and a brief message. (The answer, by the way, is 6 liters. Ive learned a lot of random trivia from his answering machine messages).
Now he has this message where his voice changes, as if he is a teenager whose voice is dropping (he isnt a teenager and his voice is low all the time). Its odd yet funny.
Im not sure how he comes up with the messages.
One day I called and he had a traditional message like Hi, this is Curt. Leave me a message.
I wondered if something was wrong, if he was looking for a new job or something like that.
Nothing was wrong he just thought it would be funny for him to have a normal message. Of course, the next week he changed it to something crazy again, something more normal for him.
Another person who records great answering messages is Carl Kasell, National Public Radio personality and official judge and scorekeeper on the weekly radio quiz show Wait Wait... Dont Tell Me! If someone plays a game on the radio show and wins, Carl Kasell will record an answering machine message on the persons home phone. He records messages that people write, whether the messages are traditional or something like a song or funny riddle. He has the perfect answering machine voice.
Im tempted to be a contestant on the quiz show for my chance to win Carl Kasells voice on my answering machine. Week after week I listen to the show and often I know the answers to questions about the weeks news.
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But Im a little hesitant to call in because some of the people who call in dont seem to know whats going on. I think, that could be me! And how awful would that be? One time on the radio show, a man kept asking for hints and was given them, so he was eventually able to answer the questions and win a prize. It was funny but I also remember thinking he wasnt too smart. That would probably be me, under pressure.
On the other hand, I could win the ultimate prize an answering machine message recorded by Carl Kasell. Thats probably worth any embarrassment I might endure. One of these days Ill call in. But its not that simple I suppose. I would need to participate in a quiz and answer questions correctly.
Even if I won Carl Kasells voice on my answering machine, I might just have him record a traditional message. I havent had a goofy answering machine message for a couple of years and I think it would be hard to go back.
I made the change after I graduated from college. In college I used to have funny messages but I eventually changed the messages to a traditional sort because I figured it would be inappropriate or confusing if I was expecting calls from potential employers or the like.
Maybe thats just part of growing up. Ill just have to enjoy other peoples funny messages.
As for my boyfriend, I wonder if hell ever get out of the funny answering machine phase. Maybe he just hasnt grown up yet.
