20 Years Ago: From Dan’s Papers March 6, 1992
Press Four. If You Need Assistance, Please Hang up.
Welcome to Malevolent Services, the company you call to deal with business efficiency problems.
If you would like to be connected to the wrong department, press one.
If you would like to be connected to the right department but to someone who hasn’t the foggiest idea of what you are talking about, press two.
If you would like to hear without interruption an alphabetized list of all the people working here at Malevolent Services together with their extension numbers, press three.
Press four and we will put you on hold for a while and allow you to listen to a recording, set to music, of why Malevolent Services is the company for YOU.
Press five to hear Kate Smith sing “God Bless America” in its entirety.
Press six and a very bad buzzing will come on the line, followed by a conversation between two farmers in Duluth, Minnesota. Don’t worry, they can’t hear you.
If you need assistance, please hang up.
If you need our service department, please press seven and we will transfer you to a recorded announcement stating that you are not in line to talk to the service department and your call will be taken in the order it was received.
Press eight to be connected, at random, with another person calling in to Malevolent Services.
E.T. Phone Home.
Press nine and a housewife in Davenport, Iowa will talk dirty to you for two dollars and fifty cents a minute.
Press 10 and you will receive either the surfing report for Montauk, New York or a report on finding God, the greenhouse effect, AIDS prevention, sex for teenagers, the proper use of a condom and techniques for brushing your dog’s teeth.
If you would like to make a call, please hang up and dial again.
If you would like to be put on hold and hear nothing but utter silence for an indefinite period of time, please press eleven.
Press 12 for instructions on how to answer the question: Who would you rather spend the evening with, Mike Tyson or Justice Clarence Thomas? You will be charged 90 cents for your opinion.
Thank you for calling Malevolent Services during our regular business hours, which are from seventeen hundred to twenty six hundred hours Pacific Standard Time on alternative Saturdays between six and eight when alternative sides of the street parking is suspended for our annual Christmas party. Or call our office in Reykjavik, Iceland where we are open 24 hours a day and operators are standing by to take your call.
Have a nice day. And thank you for calling Malevolent.