*Boop* *Boop* *Boop*!

July 28, 2003 9:22 AM

*Boop* *Boop* *Boop*! We're sorry, but the phone message you have called, is dead. Please hang up and dial again. Yes, Jane Barbe, the woman on phone messages, has been put on hold while she waits for St. Peter to take her call at the age of 74.
posted by Captain_Tenille (8 comments total)

Sure, she may not be as famous as Bob Hope, but I'm willing to venture that everyone, at least in the United States, has heard her voice at one time or another. You've probably heard her within the month, even. I know I have. I can't think of the last time I watched anything starring Bob Hope.
posted by Captain_Tenille at 9:29 AM on July 28, 2003

Agreed, Captain_Tenille, but it will be a tight race for me to figure out which one of the two has caused me more annoyance over the years. :)
posted by Space Coyote at 9:43 AM on July 28, 2003

I'm amazed she didn't die of exhaustion decades ago.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:50 AM on July 28, 2003

Her number is no longer in service.
posted by clevershark at 10:33 AM on July 28, 2003

Her phone is off the hook
posted by Outlawyr at 10:40 AM on July 28, 2003

If you believe you have reached this afterlife in error, please hang up and try again.

She may be dead, but I'll still hear her voice dozens of times a day. Joke's on me!
posted by cortex at 2:42 PM on July 28, 2003

It always bothered me that she said "The number you have reached, 555-1212, has been disconnected." Well, if it's been disconnected, I haven't reached it, have I?

I suppose she didn't write it, though.
posted by kindall at 4:40 PM on July 28, 2003

That's not true, kindall; she wrote all of her own material. The legend is that she was brutally self-critical and often couldn't write for weeks on end. "The Number You Have Reached" was actually written with a mascera wand on a jelly doughnut. You gotta give genius room to be.
posted by squirrel at 6:04 PM on July 28, 2003