Voice mail, toothpaste and much, much more!

Question: Who or which person, company or organization first started answering your phone calls with voice mail?
I think it was government – local, county, state – offices and bureaus within those units.
And, with the great, and apparently accepted use of acronyms, here’s one for voice mail: EAS.
Electronic Avoidance System.
Oh, how many times I’ve heard, ‘Leave your name, number and a short message and I’ll get back to you.?
There are only so many years in a person’s life. It is with this in mind I repeat a great line in a commercial. A guy is standing on a sidewalk yelling up at a building, ‘I know you said you’d call me back, but I’ve used up all my vacation days.?
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Recently I bought a tube of Rembrandt Plus toothpaste. The box promises ‘Peroxide Power Whitens Teeth 5 Shades.? That line is asterisked, which usually means there’s an explanation elsewhere. Couldn’t find it.
That same day I bought a stick of deodorant. More later.
With nothing else to do, I started looking for Rembrandt’s directions on how to use their paste. They tell you to brush thoroughly, but not how to brush. Is the best way up and down, back and forth, circular, what?
On the other hand, the stick deodorant reads, ‘Glide on product. Apply to underarms only.? There’s only one way to glide, as opposed to at least three ways to brush teeth.
Rembrandt, besides filling the box with way too many words, puts two sales inserts in the box and more on the tube. Oh, yeah, there are no directions on the tube itself, so I saved the box.
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Sometime in the last couple decades attorneys were given the right to advertise. Before that lawyers relied on word-of-mouth and names printed on panes in their doors. Not to be confused with pains in the drawers.
Now yellow page and television space is filled with attorneys pleading. And, they’re attention getting. Greed does that to us.
The attorney looking for people suffering from Mesothelioma almost makes me wish I had asbestos symptoms so I could hire a column writer with all the wealth I’ll be sharing in this class action lawsuit.
And, in case of serious injury or death call Sam Bernstein, Serman & Leh P.C., call Lee Free or Sarvis & Herman, to name four.
Hmmm! Maybe being healthy is more important than wealth.
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Pete Kalohn says, ‘First it was my marriage, now the magic has gone from my wedge.?
I asked Pete what he would like to drink to. He said, ‘About three in the morning.?
John Patrell asked, ‘If it’s true we are here to help others, what are others here for??
John’s my Thursday golf partner. When things aren’t going right for him, and they never are, he’ll start singing:
‘By the light
of the Silvery Moon,
I found my way
To the neighborhood saloon!?
Pete and John got together to write a drinking song, but they never got past the first two bars.
Had enough? One more: The only thing that stays in John’s and Pete’s heads for more than an hour is a cold.
No, one more: Both have faces of saints – Saint Bernards!