Toytoy was being made fun of for mentioning The Rockford Files. One of the gags they did every show was to open it with a different answering machine message that was left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jim_Rockford's_answering_machine_gags Focus: What memorable messages did you get on your answering machine or voicemail? Alt-Focus: Make some up.
FOCUS: When I was a kid, my mom got a message on our cassette-tape answering machine (remember those?) that said "Do you wanna fuck?!" And that was it. She and I looked at each other with confused looks, then started laughing. (This was before caller ID, in case the "cassette tape answering machine" wasn't enough of a tip-off.) Halloween of 2004, I missed a call, and the message went on for 28 minutes. It was just a TV playing in the background, and I couldn't tell what show it was. And NO, I didn't sit there listening to the whole thing; after the first couple of minutes, I just let the phone run on speaker while I did some other things. I figure that someone (I didn't recognize the number) tried calling me and forgot to hang up the phone. ALT. FOCUS: "Hello, Mr. Bandit. This is your parole officer, and I'm calling to let you know that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has overruled your parole status. Please turn yourself in to the nearest law enforcement agency so that you may complete the rest of your prison sentence." (I'm only halfway joking about that; in your parole paperwork, it says that TDCJ can revoke your parole at any time, for any reason. But they won't give you a call; they'll trick you into showing up to the parole office, or send a cop to your house. Or a bounty hunter.)
Focus: Not exactly a voicemail, but somewhat related... the funniest call I've ever had was from a guy I worked with in New York. I was in Vancouver and we had a quick call about some work we were doing (BowieNet stuff), and he was out at the park with his new Golden Retriever puppy. We hung up, and about 30 seconds later I get a call and all I hear is heavy breathing, and then I hear, "hey! come back here!" followed by more heavy breathing and lots of noise. I quickly realized that his new puppy had stolen his phone, pocket dialed me, and was playing "keepaway". There was about 90 seconds of heavy breathing and growling, and all in all it was pretty funny.
Focus: We found our old cassette tape recorder a little while back. One call was from my grandma to my dad asking directions to our aunt's (mom's sister) house from maybe twenty years ago. He must have picked up after the machine started recording because it caught the whole conversation. He got about 2/3rd's the way through the directions when she stops him and says "Ow wait I called because your father wanted to hear this, let me get him (sets down the phone and walks off)." My dad just repsonded "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" and hung up the phone. They are both passed away so it was quite a funny bolt from the blue to hear them spring back to life with this interaction.
Not me personally, but one of my good friends constantly gets random messages. He comes from a very stereotypical Jewish family, and being 32 and unmarried, his parents are constantly trying to set him up. About 2-3 years ago, while in LA, he got a VM from a rabbi his parents are friends with. The message was the following: "Jonah-ton! Rabbi Kaulfman. First off, I love and adore your parents, just love and adore. I have a girl for you to meet. Nice girl, nice Jewish girl. Very pretty, educated, she's a physical therapist, in shape, you know, very fit. I told her I know this great Jewish guy, great family, you two need to break bread, make it happen. Very nice, very fit. Give me a call back and I can pass along her info if you are interested. Ok, blessed day Jon, bless." He also is Austrian, so he has a weird Austrian/Hebrew Israeli accent with a deep voice. We were in hysterics. We've honestly listened to the VM over 50 times over the years. Its legend. He also got one a week later from some Southern woman saying he took pictures of her dogs and wondering when the proofs would be ready. Alt-Focus: My Dad is in the diamond industry. This is important cause when I was in HS, I thought it was hilarious to change the VM on his cell phone to me talking in an Indian accent and reciting his message. Well, about that time around 2000, the diamond industry was RAPIDLY changing and Indians began taking over a lot of the business and production previously done by Jewish companies. So one day, while working at my Dad's office in the summer, I got a call from a man named Sunil, who was one of my Dad's customers, BERATING me for the VM, asking if I thought it was funny to mock his accent, he's tried very hard to learn English, etc... I was freaking out, looking around for my Dad. All of a sudden, the guy on the phone started cracking up and it was one of my Dad's business partners pranking me. But also cautioning me that my Dad was going to be getting a lot more calls from Indians and my little stunt wasn't the best idea.
I got a voicemail message a few years ago from an Unknown Number that just had a gruff voice asking me if I "Had the stuff" and that the caller would meet me "in the place" on "Thursday. Night time.". I did not meet up with this individual. I feel like someone probably got murdered that night.
My cat is named "Lomax." When I was in college, a buddy of mine had a recycled phone number and would get voicemails from some guy in the middle of the looking for the (presumably drug) hook-up and asking for some other guy named Lomax. This went on for months and he must have left 6 or 7 voicemails over the course of a year. Thats where my cat got his name.
My mom left me a voicemail one time, because she kept getting spam email, and wasn't sure if she should just delete it. She said something like, "I'm not sure if they have my personal information." And, finally she said she'd just read it to me. "It's starts out, 'what's up, sexy? I saw you on dating website, and wanted to see if we could hook up.' " I've mixed some of her messages into a rap beat before to make little videos I send my sisters.
Awhile ago I got several VMs from a middle aged black lady looking for "Tyrone". At first I thought it was a joke, but they became progressively angrier. "Tyrone! I know this is your number. You better PICK. UP. THE. PHONE! Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!"
Back when the economy tanked I started my own business. I always did business over the phone, saw very few people in person. I took on one client that, I could tell by our first conversation, was at death's door and about to sail right through it. His voice was as rough as I'd ever heard, sounded like he smoked four packs a day for 100 years and ate light bulbs like candy. And his mind was clearly not as sharp as it had been, and he knew it was failing him. He cursed himself for forgetting small details about our work together. A few hours later I get a voicemail that is simply his gruff, haggard voice saying, "Well, God Damn," followed by a few seconds of silence before the message ended. I never heard from the man again. I called back several times, never was the phone answered. I believe I heard this man's last words.
This article is relevant. Dude in Seattle has Sir-Mix-A-Lots old number, gets some funny texts and calls.
For about 5 years after I got my cell phone I was getting calls from a woman who spoke only Spanish and thought I was Emilio. She would call maybe once a month, maybe once every few weeks, and I would typically say "This isn't Emilio, you have the wrong number" and hang up. However, Hablo un poquito de español, so after about 3 years of this I tried to engage her in her native language. Big mistake. I couldn't get her to stop talking, and she called me about 5 times a day for the next several days. Now I know why Emilio's avoiding her.
Back in the day, we would sometimes use *67. For those that don't know, if uou tried calling someone and their line was busy (how DARE they not have call waiting!!) you could hang up and dial *67. Once there line was free, your phone would ring a specialized ring, and then it would be dialing them when you picked up. Well, I was in middle school at the time and we were trying to get a hold of my best friend to go pick him up. Continuing to get a busy signal, I hit *67. Finally, we just left to go get him. Anyway, when we got back home, the *67 had already dialed him up and the specialized ring rang enough with no one answering to be picked up by the machine. So there's a message on the answering machine of him just being so damn confused, "uhhhhh, Riggins? Uh, well, I picked up the phone because it was ringing and uhh you're machine picked up? Uh, well, uhhhhh, I thought YOU were calling ME?! What the...." We listened to that over and over again, just laughing our ass off.