Cell Phone Excuses

Cell Phone Excuses
Originally uploaded by mryosemite.

Associated Press
August 9th, 2004

New York - Judging by cell phone calls that deliver emergency excuses, the peak time for "dates from hell" is Friday at 8 p.m.

Truth is, they're fake "rescue" calls - now being offered by two cell phone providers, Cingular Wireless and Virgin Mobile USA. In an era of Internet-set dates, it's just customer service - a hip way to wiggle out of an uncomfortable encounter.

According to a Virgin Mobil spokesman, "The rescue calls are a way to use the phone as a lifestyle accessory."

For both Cingular and Virgin Mobile, the prerecorded messages are created at a high-tech central command in California's Silicon Valley. There, five people with doctorates in linguistics dream up excuses for folks to repeat before suddenly dropping a date gone sour.

Top 5 Ways to End a Date

5. My Vet just called, he said the test results came back and it doesn't look good. I have to take my hamster to the hospital for immediate open-heart surgery.

4. Ripley's Believe It or Not just called; they want me to come down immediately. They don't believe that I was born with six testicles.

3. My friends are having a Star Wars party this weekend. I was thinking that I'd be Han Solo, and since you're naturally hairy, you could be Chewbacca.

2. Oh cool, that was the family taxidermist. He said I can pick up my deer head and badger. He said that he's still working on my brother's bear skin, and then he said he was going to mount my sister's beaver...but that's strange...I don't remember her shooting a beaver.

And the number one excuse...

1. Good news! That was my doctor from the Free Clinic, it appears that I've made it into the Guinness Book of World Records!