A black woman’s voice, sort of shouting, and very defiant, in the middle of a sentence, saying,
“Yeah, we’re locked out by ourselves. No, we’re not movin’…we’re not movin’ until we move out. We’ve visualized everybody still sittin’ there.”
And then laughter. Another message followed a few minutes later that was unintelligble, but the same woman, very argumentative.
The thing about “visualizing everybody still sitting there” just gets me! It sounds like someone yelling at their landlord, until that line. But I guess if you believe in the power of visualization, it might make sense!
So what strange messages have been left on your voicemail by mistake?
“I didn’t fucking call you, you called me, mother fucker…so…I don’t know what the fuck this shit is…”
Apparantly, my answering machine called the guy across the hall at about 1:00 AM. It’s been on my machine for two months now. I crack up every time I hear it.
This guy called up my friend’s phone saying that someone named Betty was in a coma and not doing well, along with some other medical information that I don’t remember. He apparently thought he was calling someone named Mary. We called him back as soon as we got the message to let him know it was the wrong number, since it was apparently a very important call. A few minutes later he called back, we told him it was the wrong number again. He sounded very distraught and didn’t really seem to understand so my friend said that he really needed to check the number again since it was such a dire situation. After that, he called back again and we didn’t answer, hoping he would pay some attention to my friend’s voicemail that said “Hi, you’ve reached Stephanie!” He didn’t call back after that, I always wondered what happened with that whole thing.
My grandparents were out of town from November to February, so it was the job of my other relatives and I to go to their house and check on things like the answering machine. One day, harborwolf and I were down there listening the the messages on the machine. All of a sudden, what sounded like a teenaged girl says “Hi it’s me, I just wanted to call you, you sexy muthafucka,” and hangs up. We cracked up. I really hope it was a wrong number, otherwise, my grandfather has some serious explaining to do. :eek:
Left on a machine on which the OGM had both my first and last name (yeah, I know, but I was job hunting at the time) along with nobody else’s name, so there’s no excuse for the caller not to realize that he had the wrong number.
“Hello, this message is for Bob Smith (or whoever) from (some trucking company). This is Whatsisflip from (security company), I’m calling to let you know that I was patrolling the lot and door number twenty-four is open.”
I looked the trucking firm up in the phone book and called them the next day. I told the receptionist that they might want to look into hiring a new security company.
About seventeen years ago, I got home from work to find a message on my machine, calling me by name, berating me for having an affair with her husband. As the only guy I was sort of casually dating at the time had an apartment he shared with another guy (to which I had been to watch a movie), I never did figure out who I was supposed to be having an affair with. Considering that I am a computer programmer, at best only moderately attractive, and hardly what you’d consider the femme fatale type, I always wondered whose excitement I had missed out on!
Towards the end of my stint as a retail drone, we put in a new phone system. If someone didn’t after the phone after awhile (or, if you called before we opened and didn’t navigate the phone system correctly), it would kick you to voicemail. Thus, listening to our messages was quite a treat…
“Hello? Hello? (talking to someone) I heard someone pick up. Hello? Do you have <name of book>…Hello?..You know, this isn’t very good customer service…let me talk to your manager!..LET ME SPEAK WITH A MANA…”
Though it was usually the Little Old Ladies that had the most trouble…
“Hello?..Hello?..Is anyone there?..Hello? (continue for 3 minutes)”
I had a similar message. This lady with a very rural accent called to say that “Miss Ellie” (don’t remember the exact name) had had a heart attack and they were not expecting her to leave the hospital (warmer than room temperature, I assumed). Unfortunately, they didn’t leave me a name or number to call back and tell them that they had not reached whomever they were looking for.
Then a few weeks ago, I had a message from a woman that said, “Hi Mr. Tucker, my name is Madeleine Mullaney, and my daughter purchased. . .” That was the entire message. My machine had run out of memory, and she never called back. I do not know anyone with the last name of Mullaney, nor would I know what some purchase her daughter made might have concerned me, since I am not in any kind of situation where I sell stuff.
My friend, who has an incredibly long and arduous message of himself singing on the answering machine, got a message with a woman asking, “Hey Cindy! Do you want to go to Hawaii with us? If you do, you can go. Just seeing if you want to go to Hawaii.”
I returned home once to find:
Okay, Ann (not me), this is my third time calling!
I keep trying to reach you!
We got the wrong room for these guys,
You know the really important ones!
We don’t know if they want smoking or non-smoking
Oh, my gosh! I don’t know what to do.
Please call! I’ll try again!
Had any number been left, I would have returned the call and said they definitely wanted smoking rooms plus they need fifteen pizzas charged to the room ASAP. Oh, and send up some call girls too.
I know this is not left on an answering machine, but it was one-sided…Once, when I was a teen and at home alone one night, somebody called and said:
(terrified woman’s voice) Oh, my God! There are these people pulling up in the driveway. It’s a van! Oh, my God! They are coming! It is a black van. They are nearly here! (terrified breathing)
(me) Hello?
(terrified woman) Paula?
(me) No, this is Never to be Queen
(terrifed woman) Gasps and hangs up.
I still wonder who the people were and what happened.
Along the same lines, someone text-messaged my cell with the inviting phrase “YOU SAID YOU WOULD CALL ME.”
The number was unfamiliar, and even though–because I was drunk and curious at three in the morning when I checked it–I tried to call it back, the number was “out of service.”
Makes me wonder if this is a sign of the Text Message Spam in our future.
Oh, and I myself love to call my friends’ voicemail and start going, “HEY, DAMMIT, I KNOW YOU’RE FREAKIN’ HOME. ANSWER THE DAMN PHONE. IT’S AUDREY! PICK UP, YOU BASTARDS!”
I guess I should’ve figured that some people really do think that voicemail is being heard somewhere live.
I got a fax that came on my voice/fax line that was addressed to an agent booking a theatre for a play. It demaned an immediate deposit or the reservation would be cancelled.
I faxed back that they had the wrong fax number and to call the agent on the phone number listed on their form.
Instead, they called ME back, got my answering machine with my name in the message and DEMANDED that I appologize for ducking them.
So I had to call the agent myself and leave him a message what had happened on his machine.
Thought it was solved, but 3 mos. later the identical problem happened again!
An unfamiliar woman’s voice: “Oh, sorry Robby. I guess I got the wrong number. Uh… bye!”
Robby is my name, and I mention it on the machine’s greeting. I find it really odd that she left a message at all on finding it was the wrong number, let alone that she mentioned the name she heard on the machine as if she knew me.
A few months ago I got a call on our house’s VM from an old woman who said that she ran out of oxygen and she was calling to request some brought to her. Worried, I called her back and found out that she had misdialed and she ended up getting her oxygen after all. Apparently she lived in a nursing home and I guess her calls were monitored or something.
This one didn’t involve voicemail but I once got a couple of text messages on my cell from someone swearing at me and telling me to turn around. I guess he/she was trying to contact someone in the same room (in a class) but I was home that day.
Worried, I called her back and found out that she had misdialed and she ended up getting her oxygen after all. Apparently she lived in a nursing home and I guess her calls were monitored or something.