Well you should be happy for me...

December 17, 2010 11:26 AM

Many years ago the answering machine at my parents house received a mysterious phonecall which was two male voices. The first said clearly in a fairly loud tone of voice "Well you should be happy for me..." and the other replied "...I am... but..." The message then cut off. Is this from something, or a reference to something?

I loved the randomness of the message and the tones of the voice. I was never able to find those phrases as being sourced anywhere, so I always assumed it was a wonderful random message, and I adopted the phrases myself (used for a website for awhile), but I figured I'd ask in case they ring a bell with anyone. Unfortunately my mother deleted the message before I got the oppurtunity to record it.

posted by haveanicesummer to grab bag (4 answers total)

I've heard that conversation a lot from various people. Most likely you just caught someone in an argument.
posted by theichibun at 11:41 AM on December 17, 2010

Crossed lines - I've had it happen to me occasionally also.
posted by medzmaestra at 12:32 PM on December 17, 2010

Crossed line. We used to have fun years ago with a phone number that one of the guys at the call center I worked for discovered by accident. This number connected to some jacked up line at the local exchange that "listened in" on calls. You'd wait after calling this number, then you'd hear ringing, then someone would answer and all of a sudden there'd be a conversation. Both parties could hear you too, but we never announced ourselves (except to laugh every so often). Then they'd hang up and the line would go silent until the next crossed line call came though. Anyway, I digress. Crossed line. Doesn't seem to happen as much these days, maybe on really old exchanges..
posted by tra at 12:47 PM on December 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

My parents often get this on their answering machine. A call-centre dials their number and the machine picks up. The rep on the other end sometimes does not hear (or understand) the answering machine message and there's often fragments of conversation in a variety of languages, general crowd noise or, once, some creative swearing.
posted by ninazer0 at 3:25 PM on December 17, 2010