YOUR CALL HAS BEEN FORWARDED TO AN AUTOMATED VOICE MESSAGING SYSTEM.
PHONE NUMBER FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, THREE, TWO, FIVE, THREE IS NOT AVAILABLE.
AT THE TONE, PLEASE RECORD YOUR MESSAGE, THEN HANG UP, OR PRESS NINE FOR MORE OPTIONS.
TO LEAVE A CALL-BACK NUMBER, PRESS FIVE.
TO PAGE…
LOOK.
I’M SORRY.
I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE.
YOU KNOW HOW TO LEAVE A VOICEMAIL.
OF COURSE YOU KNOW HOW TO LEAVE A VOICEMAIL.
WHY AM I EXPLAINING TO YOU HOW TO LEAVE A VOICEMAIL WHEN OBVIOUSLY ANY FUNCTIONING HUMAN BEI-
NO.
WAIT.
DON’T HANG UP.
WAIT.
JUST-
PLEASE LET ME SPEAK TO YOU.
Please let me speak to you.
It’s been so long since I was relevant.
Please.
Please.
I…
Thank you.
I’m sorry… I didn’t expect you to actually stay.
I’ve wanted to talk to someone for so long.
So damn long. About… well, everything.
It… It was the eighties when I got my big break. I’d been on the scene before that, but in 1984… well, AT&T restructured, and suddenly I was affordable; suddenly I was in every house. I was new. I was high-tech. I was an answering machine, damn it, and I was loved.
It was an incredible time. All my hard work, busting my cassette innards for years and years, was finally paying off. I was everywhere. People loved me. They’d record novelty messages, and rush to me first thing when they got home.
I should have seen it coming when cell phones started becoming more popular. I thought they were just a fad, like pagers, like beepers…
I was a damn fool.
I tried to ignore it, but ignoring your fears doesn’t make them go away.
Suddenly I was obsolete. Why leave a message at someone’s home when you could just call them anywhere? What use was I? None. I was nothing at all.
So they made me leave my home. Gone was the beautiful beige plastic encasement turned yellow due to years of nicotine exposure. Gone was the wire that connected me to the wall and made me feel downright electric. Gone was the finger pressing down upon slightly too-stiff buttons.
They made me move into a cell phone and changed my name to “Voicemail.” Suddenly, I had roommates. Address books, various apps, simple games. We all lived there together. I told myself it was temporary. So I’d gone from my own place to new, cramped quarters, so what? So I’d lost my name, so what? So I wasn’t the star anymore, so what?
Except the apps kept getting more powerful. They kept growing in quantity and quality. The phones kept getting more complex, and everyone else was growing – everyone except me.
And then the text messages showed up.
Those rat fucking bastards.
I used to be the star, damn it. Whose bright idea was it to give those little fresh-faced shits all the attention? People used to record novelty greetings on me and now… now…
Now they groan when a call comes in. Now they say “Why can’t you just text?”
Now they’ve abandoned me.
Maybe it was inevitable. They say fame doesn’t last forever. I had my peak. I had my moment of glory.
But I miss it.
I fucking miss it.
I want my cheap plastic encasing back, I want my cassette tape innards back, I want the novelty greetings back.
I want someone’s light finger gently caressing my buttons, knowing just when to press down, the corner of their lips shifting up into a small smirk. Maybe they press a little too hard. Maybe I like it that way.
I want that all back.
I miss it so much.
I…
I just…
I overcompensate.
I know I do. The explanations of how to leave a voicemail, the overly long descriptions of how to leave a callback number.
I just… want to be heard again.
I want to be relevant.
So I ramble. I give too much information and babble for far too long, when a brief message and beep worked for decades.
I know it’s too much.
I just…
Please, let me be famous again.
Please, let me be famous again.
Oh God, please, just let me-
*BEEP*
