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    Sean BrodyJoe Veix
    12/09/14 10:48am

    I had a friend that would send out a mixtape of all the drunk voicemails she had gotten that year, it was a great little Christmas thing.
    Texting killed it. Such is progress.

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      Tom Servo's mechanical heart, Flat Earth TrutherJoe Veix
      12/09/14 10:59am

      When I was in high school, for a few weeks I received voicemail messages from an unknown number (even back then, I never answered the phone if I didn't know who was calling. Oh, who am I kidding, I didn't - and still don't - answer no matter WHO is calling). The man sounded very old and cranky, and was clearly looking for the money he was owed for selling some person some weed. I was actually a little afraid, envisioning this old man and his old man gang tracking me down and breaking my 16-year-old kneecaps with their hurry-canes. Eventually I answered and informed him that he had the wrong number, and he was amazingly polite about it.

      I guess that really isn't such an exciting story after all, but that's what I got, folks!

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        IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerJoe Veix
        12/09/14 10:53am

        I have only one old voicemail saved. It's from a girl (well, a woman, by now) that I considered my 'dream girl' back in high school. I had just closed the back door, on my way to a first date that would turn into a disasterous marriage, and in it, she didn't really say much, but anybody could easily tell that she wanted to ask me out.....every now and then, I replay it, to get an idea of how differently life could've turned out. Oh, I don't play it as much these days, because even the most hardened of memories begin to fade after that long, but still.........

        Nah, I'm kidding! NOBODY called me in high school; certainly not a girl! HA!!

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          John BoehnerJoe Veix
          12/09/14 11:13am

          I love stories about memories of dying popular technology. My dad has a lot with radio from the 40s and early 50s, I have a lot of stories about early 90s internet.

          I'm not even sad that answering machines are going out of style. When people leave me voicemails I don't listen to them unless I'm screening an unknown number.

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            Mac Cheese & Hot Dogs, PlzJoe Veix
            12/09/14 12:14pm

            When I was in middle school my phone number was somehow getting voicemails re-routed to it. The person would call the correct number, but then end up at my voicemail so I would have 30 voicemails a day. There were quite a few mothers and girlfriends that were angry/confused as to why a girl was on their sons/boyfriends voicemail, but the best voicemail I got was some guy trying to call from jail. I think it was a college aged dude that got thrown in the drunk tank.

            While entertaining, I couldn't deal with 30 voicemails a day, so I changed my number.

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              therealquash ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗJoe Veix
              12/09/14 11:05am

              My former landlord keeps calling me to schedule an air conditioning repair, among other things. I haven't lived in the house for 9 years or so, I'd guess. But I have a fairly generic name so I suppose there is some new person living there with my name.

              The first time it happened I called her back and told her she had the wrong number. But apparently that hasn't gotten through.

              Now I just ignore the calls and listen to the funny voicemails.

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                xraygunJoe Veix
                12/09/14 10:52am

                Poignant. Thank you, Joe.

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                  Ned Freyxraygun
                  12/09/14 11:14am

                  That single phone message he saved and posted is just heartbreaking.

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                Medieval KnievelJoe Veix
                12/09/14 11:09am

                The feature on This American Life—first aired in 2002 and recently rebroadcast—recalls the glory days of the ROLM phone voicemail system, when ROLM was once a force to be reckoned with. Listen here to the story of how one phone message became the meme (assuming they had memes back then) of the year at Columbia, about two decades ago.

                http://columbiaspectator.com/2010/06/26/ame…

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                  ninjaginJoe Veix
                  12/09/14 11:09am

                  I must be shallow and unpopular because I prefer voicemails over texts.

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                    benjaminalloverJoe Veix
                    12/09/14 11:06am

                    My mom still consistently uses the wrong medium for her messages, sending verbose, emotional complex texts and leaving grocery lists and driving directions on my voicemail.

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