Soluting Real Men of Genius--Answering Machine Inventor

Have you ever heard the radio commercials for Real Men of Genius? (If you haven't heard them, I recommend Mr. Too Much Cologne Wearer and Mr. Tollbooth Collector.) I'm in a class called Substance Abuse and Addictive Behaviors and we spend a solid portion of every class watching things like Superbowl beer commercials, explaining drinking games, or watching beer or tobacco ads. Lame.



Anyway, I decided to try my hand...



Background:

I'm pretty sure I believe that answering machines were invented to make perfectly competent people feel like complete imbeciles. For instance, one time, my sister Elisabeth (who is often quite eloquent) went to leave a message for a boy she was liked at the time (Jake). It ended up something like this:

Hi Elisabeth, this is Jake. NO! I mean, Hi, Jake, this is Elisabeth. I was wondering...um...

I have won speech contests before. I feel fairly confident in my ability to speak clearly, but another time, I tried leaving a phone message that came out something along the lines of

Um...hi...this is Emily...this message is for ___. So...hi ____ this is Emily...
Um...I was...um...okay...this is Emily...and...I had a question about____ so if
you can give me a call, this is Emily...and my number is...um...___.

So people who have all their faculties about them basically end up saying

I'm a complete moron. I'll call you back when I feel more competent...or you can
give me a call if you think I'm worth talking to still...I'll understand if
I'm too idiotic to speak to anymore.

And Here We Go...

So today I solute you Mr. Answering Machine Inventor. You make completely competent people feel like imbeciles (Mr. Answering Machine Inventor).



You make it possible to sound like you're speaking a foreign language when you're trying to communicate something simple (what the heck are you saying?).



You are responsible for ruining relationships, business transactions, and international relations merely by creating a machine that captures the absolute neanderthal in us all (ha ha you stupid moron).



Today we solute you, Mr. Answering Machine Inventor. May you rot in Hades. (Mr. Answering Machine In-veeeeen-tor!).