The Ballad of Fred Overmeyer

If you're anything like me, I bet you have a voicemail box that you hate and rarely use. Yeah. We've gotten to that point in our culture. It's funny, we still call it a telephone, but this generation doesn't even use it as a telephone. There was even a joke on Community (fuck I love that show, I'm so excited Yahoo! is bringing it back!!) where Britta was bitching about something and Troy says "Oh yeah, she was born in the 80's. She still uses a phone as a telephone."

But earlier today a friend of mine in the Great State of Texas posted something about voicemails and it got me thinking on this topic.

What's your outgoing message? If you acted like a freaking adult, I bet it would be some sputtered nonsense about leaving a name and number. Why are you giving me instructions? I know how to use goddamn voicemail. (This was pointed out by Jon in his post, BTDubs...) Or if you're even less interested, you probably have the Robot Lady read off your number (which fucking blows cuz it honestly takes forever and the bitch has a goddamn creepy voice and cadence). That, or opt to record your name. Which honestly, sometimes sounds creepier cuz most people sound weird when they say their own name. I always hated hearing my mother's. She has a weird way of saying her full name.

Speaking of mothers, My mother is the only one who usually leaves me voicemail messages. Nobody else. Seriously, if you're reading this, Mom, stop fucking leaving those. It takes an hour just to get to the part where I hear it and it's just you telling me you called. Yeah. I know you called, Ma. It's called Caller ID, it was developed by GTE, and it came out in the damn 90's. It's the 21st Century, mom. Get with it.

Also, I love you. (Hey, fuck off, and stop snickering. I love my mother, okay!?)

But here's what my outgoing message usually sounds like. "You've reached the voicemail box of..." and the part where you're supposed to hear my name, I record a quick 4-6 second message of me yelling for help and shouting about being kidnapped. I'm pretty fucked up. And that's not even the best story.

I don't remember where I got this idea from...probably a movie or TV show, but I had a message that would start off like "Hello? ... Oh hey, what's up!? ... ... Hang on a second, getting another call...it's my mother, hold on a sec..." And then it would switch to record. You'd hear them sitting there just waiting and hear shit going on in the background. I got my old friend Matt Epright with that prank once. He called back and told me I was a dick...and laughed. Cuz well, it's a pretty funny prank.

The show Archer, of course, takes that prank to complete other level. Epic Prank Voicemail!!

But check this out...

About ten years ago, when I came home to Florida, I had my phone switched to a Florida number. This was kind of a mistake. Because I wound up getting, like many of you might know, some previous person's former number. As those same people may understand, that can be kind of annoying but tolerable, but it can also be a fucking nightmare.

Now, the Overmeyer Situation was no nightmare... but it was kinda close sometimes. I got calls for Fred Overmeyer for years. At first I was mostly polite. Hey, they obviously don't know that the guy switched phones or whatever. This was in 2004, mind you. People didn't buy new phones every week. As much, anyway.

But anyways... I started out being polite. But the calls were sometimes quite frequent. Like sometimes 2 or 3 a day. And often at inconvenient times. I started answering calls that asked for Fred Overmeyer telling them that he was fucking dead. Or some shit. It was funny to me. Some people took offense...and aaaaahh...I didn't fucking care. I was getting annoyed.

So I immediately instituted a policy of screening all unknown numbers. Unless I was feeling froggy at an opportune moment. Cuz I like fucking with people live and in person. (Fuck it!! We're doing it live!!) But I eventually switched my voicemail message to say something along the lines of... Hello. If you're looking for Fred Overmeyer, I sorry to tell you that he's passed away. This is his cousin, Troy. If you'd like to attend services...blah blah blah..." And I left a fake phone number. I also did it using a really effeminate voice. I thought it was fun to play Troy.

There was one time I had a guy really going, live. I had a spare moment when I received a call for Fred, and I just went with it. I told the guy he died in a car accident. Dude asked me if it was the Crossfire, I said "No, no, the other one..." (All the while thinking 'aha! this guy has money!!') I can't remember how it ended, but I do remember him realizing it was a prank. Some people had a sense of humor about it and even had a laugh. Others not so much, but who cares, they take themselves way too seriously.

The best of the Voicemail Funeral Era, was a guy... and I can't remember his name... left a series of voice mails. He was extremely interested in coming to the funeral, and I wanna say called back something like 4 times. And he treated Troy like he was a real person, which was fucking surreal, I gotta say.

But that's not the most surreal it got. The epilogue is the Kicker.

One day, I'm driving down...I dunno... Tuttle...or MacIntosh Road in Sunny Sarasota with my girlfriend, and I receive a phone call. And I don't know what the fuck possessed me to answer it while driving (cuz I rarely do it) but I hit SEND, say "Hello" and I hear,

"Hey! Troy! ...It's ME, Fred!! I'm back from the dead!"

It was Fred Fucking Overmeyer, himself. No shit. I was dumbfounded, and I look over at Liz, and say to her, "Um...it's Fred Overmeyer. Yeah. No shit. I can't deal with this at the moment, do you think you could talk to him?" Liz already knew the score (was 'in the know', as they say), and thought it was funny, so she took the phone and talked to him. After the call, she gave me the scoop (the lowdown, the rundown, what's the haps wit da craps?).

Apparently, for years now, his wife would randomly receive these flower deliveries and messages of condolence about her husband. And he heard about the message. And also, apparently the name Troy came up. (Like, 'Who the fuck is Troy?') Fred had a sense of humor about it, and that made me happy. He was in real estate and had been giving out business cards for years with that number on it. There's no way he could possibly control that, ya know?

But it was cool. And now I guess we both have a funny little story about it.