No Answers from the Answering Machine

Did you ever analyze what Answering Machines really do?
They are supposed to answer-the-ring...but in fact, there are no answers given. When I get one of those fun, clever messages like, "not here..you know what to do"...I have received absolutely NO answers as to where my intended communicatee is...when will they return? How can I reach them now, when I want to talk? What are they doing now? Can they loan me the money or not??

These units should be officially called "entertainment machines". They must give some jollies to the person who owns them. They can leave a sarcastic recording saying, "hey, if you're a bill collector, don't call back...and if you found my pet snake, you can keep it, if you're my Mother-in-law, we moved..everyone else can leave a message."
Or...my favorite is when a small child who can barely mumble leaves a cutesy message about her parents being busy and she's not allowed to disturb them.


The other side of the "entertainment value" is when the owner of this favorite toy comes home and listens to the ramblings of frustrated callers (of course, this is assuming that said person has not already heard the message by screening the call!)

I, personally, like to use up the entire time by chattng on and on. I suppose I figure that is divine retribution for not picking up the phone then and there. My Dad, on the other hand, would leave the most cryptic words, "Call your Father."
My brother would say, "Peg, call me as soon as you can..it's important." There was nothing Dave ever said that WASN'T important..to HIM.
But I would panic (my nature) and think something was wrong and I was needed to change into my cape with the "S" on it to swoop in and save the day. Most of the time, he wanted to tell me his latest review of the last movie he saw.

I'm going to go change all my answering mach...whoops....ENTERTAINMENT machines messages to something clever and glib. Maybe I'll sing my message. Maybe I'll buy one of those pre-recorded celebrities telling people how very busy and in demand I am.

Call me!