There is something about a voice mail message that just twists up my undies and ties my tongue in knots! Have you ever noticed, the moment you press record on that goofy little black whiz-bang, your tongue gets all twisted and gnarled and you can’t see cuz your eyeteeth are all covered up in slobber and drool and your voice gets shakey and insane?

When you run a business from home, the least you can do is have a professional sounding voicemail for when your clients call and you can’t answer the phone, but for some crazy unknown reason, I can’t get my voicemail to sound like anything other than a child talking through a mouth full of marshmallows, chocolate, and bubblegum. Or worse, like I just woke up from an overdose of herb tea and chocolate covered donuts.

Whether it’s a voice mail I’m leaving for a client or the one on my own phone, for taking messages, my message sounds garbled and nutty.

Some of the more interesting messages I’ve left:

a) Hi this is Jan, I can’t come to the phone, stop that! right now, and I can’t keep talking on this thing, will you stop harassing me until I can get this recorded.

b) Hi this is Jan, in a moment you’ll hear a buzz, it isn’t a bee, leave your name and number and I’ll…darn it! stop talking while I’m doing this please!

c) Hi this is Jan at 719 number - call me back please. Did you have to burp in my ear when I was leaving a message ---- hang up the phone!

d) Hi this is Jan, *scream* get that cat out of here, I’m recording my voicemail.

e) Hi this is Jan, you’ve reached *stutter, stutter* the wrong number, leave your name and number and I’ll call you back at… did I just say that?

f) *I forgot my name* Yo, I ain’t here now, leave a number. I’ll either call you back or ignore your call and hope you’ll go away, but… you’ll have done the world a service by keeping my phone busy and saving some other poor soul from having to hear my voice today. Okay, I’m going to start this recording over again and hope I can remember my name.

g) Hi, this is Jan, I’m not available at the moment, I uhh… ran out of donuts, my coffee cup is empty, and I’m really sick of ringing phones so I’ve left the house in search of a quiet space, more donuts , and an ever-full coffee cup. If I find it, I’ll call you back and let you know where heaven is. Or maybe I won’t… Leave a number just in case.

h) Hi, this is Jan, no this isn’t a dream, it’s a real nightmare, I’m not here, so you’ll have to leave a number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I get done with the last crisis that interrupted my day. It shouldn’t take long, we got the bleeding stopped and there don’t appear to be any broken bones… Dr.?

I) Hi, this is Jan… uhhhh was I changing my voice mail or leaving a message?

And then there are those messages you leave on someone else’s voice mail, and you realize after you’ve left your name and number and started to hang up (too late, you hung up), that the person who created their voice mail is as inept as you are about all this stuff, because they forgot to end the voicemail message until after a long period of time has passed and you left your message before the beep. So, all they have is your caller ID and a hang up.

The joys of technology - if we didn’t have it would we ever have anything to laugh about anymore?