Just read of a guy who liked to answer the phone by saying “I’ll play your silly little game”, which I find titanically funny for some reason.
I’ve been partial to answering with “myellow” a la Hal from Infinite Jest for some time now.
Have any favorites of your own?
When somebody asks me to answer their phone for them, I usually say something like “Thank-you for calling [person’s name] phone. Your call is very important to us. How may I direct your call today?”
“KBBL is gonna gimme something stupid!”
Back in the days of answering machines, for a while my message was a simple “what?”.
mmm
The message on my answering machine says, “You have reached the answering machine of ____ and ___. Please leave a message at the tone.” Some people find this hilarious.
I had a roommate once who answered with, “House of God, may I help you?” 
“Tony’s morgue. Which stiff you want to talk to?”
The last time I owned an answering machine, the message went something like “You have reached a recording of Apocalypso. I am either not available or I’m screening my calls and don’t want to talk to you. Please begin recording your compliments, complaints, or suggestions when you hear the high pitched noise. Make sure you tell me who it is and leave your number.”
My uncle used to answer his phone:
“County Morgue – You Kill 'em, we chill 'em.”
He invariably did this, and in those pre-caller ID days, obviously had no idea who was calling. So this message would’ve gone out not only to family members, but everyone – neighbors, friends, the priest, telemarketers (okay, I could appreciate that), and wrong numbers. This didn’t stop him, though.
This reminds me of the odd little incident from way back - I was in a car with my mother, who called my brother. He didn’t answer and the phone went into the voice mail, which had a recording of him half snarling, half muttering roughly “don’t bother bringing that slut here beep” (assuming I heard it right). We both went :eek:
and she called him a few more times trying to ascertain that that’s what the message really said. I never asked him about that afterwards, not sure if my mom did either.
I still answer my cellphone often with my surname, even though these days you tend to get the person who you aimed the call for every time. Perhaps not odd yet, but if I keep on doing it for a while it could be odd at some point in the future.
When I was a teen, I worked the PBX switchboard (similar to this) on Saturday mornings at the company where my dad worked. As you might expect, I’d answer “Good morning, <company name.>”
Occasionally after particularly busy mornings, I’d be home and answer the phone the same way. I’m sure that confused more than one caller.
It might be common enough elsewhere, but I’ve only heard my Dad and his mother (my grandma) answer by saying, “All right!”
My favorite “odd” one was just saying “hello” in an exasperated or even annoyed manner. A friend always said it that way and I’d almost always laugh at how angry and put out it sounded. It was always that same downward pitched way that’s very hard to simulate by typing.
City Morgue - you stab 'em, we slab 'em
Someone I work with said that he would sometimes answer the phone and say "Hello can I speak to <person who is calling>? And it would always give them pause.
This is recent and with caller ID (so he could say the name)
I like to answer by saying, “Randolph Scott hotline” (older people know who he is). Sometimes the callers hang up. Some sales callers begin calling Mr. Scott???
A one-time favorite with me and the kids (it lasted almost 3 hours before my wife heard it) was -
LEAVE ME ALONE! I’M ON THE TOILET! We laughed till we cried over that one.
In work I sometimes answer with “SPEAK!” or maybe “Hello - Batcave, Robin speaking”.
My brother’s message was always: “We’re not here. You know what to do.”
A guy I knew in college would answer with “Garden of the Gods… God speaking.”
I knew another guy who liked to answer with “Ya hey dere!” in a “Fargo” sort of accent.
I have often used “Start talking… now!”
A friend way back in junior high school would answer the phone that way. It royally pissed off his father, who would chew out my friend every time.
On our machine, I used to have: “It’s the 20th century. You know what to do.”
