...or, Dealing with the dreaded Interactive Voice Response System.
The other day I mentioned that I spent about an hour punching buttons on the phone trying to reach a live person at my loan place. Here's the original passage:
My day was spent trying to figure out the right buttons to press to get to talk to a real, live person at my loan place! I think I dialled the number at least three times before I figured out the proper combination of buttons to press that ended up with a live person at the end of all that beeping. That wasted about an hour.
Mamma Vash commented thusly:
Oh, oh-- dealing with the dreaded Voice Mail! I hate voice mail, I make snide comments while it goes through the menu -- and generally try to figure out how to trick it into giving me a live person... sigh, never works. A really weird stray thought... imagine several different anime characters trying to cope with Voice Mail....
That got me thinking...
How would different anime characters react to dealing with an IVR? I know there's a lot of anime out there, but I limited my thinking to a few of my favorites. Enjoy.
Cowboy Bebop
Jet: He'd sit through it patiently pushing buttons. He'd probably be doing something else while waiting...like working on his bonsai trees.
Faye: She'd lose patience half way through, slam the phone down, tell it off and complain to whoever's within earshot.
Spike: He'd eventually get frustrated and perhaps shoot the phone.
Ed: She'd hack her way to whatever it was the others were after and change the program in the process.
InuYasha
InuYasha: He'd snort at it and not bother.
Kagome: She'd go through it patiently. She's too nice to lose patience with it.
Miroku: If the voice is female, he'd ask it to bear his children.
Sesshomaru: He'd make Jaken deal with it.
Naraku: Does it have anything to do with finding shards of the Shikon Jewel? No? He'd not bother with it.
Trigun
Milly: She'd patiently wait through all the choices and probably would forget what she was after in the first place.
Meryl: She wouldn't be going through the IVR because she's probably sitting at the end of it.
Vash: He'd patiently sit through all the choices, considering each of them until Wolfwood loses patience with him and shoots the phone.
Knives: He'd destroy it, of course.
FullMetal Alchemist
Colonel Mustang: He'd make someone else go through it and let him know when there's someone there.
Major Armstrong: He'd take off his shirt, flex his muscles at it and go on about the great button pushing skills passed down through the Armstrong family for generations.
Lt. Colonel Hughes: He'd try to tell the voice about his darling daughter and wife.
Edward Elric: He'd try to figure out how to transmute his way through it, but probably would end up transmuting the phone into something else.
Alphone Elric: He'd fix the phone and then go after Ed to try to convince him to try it again.
Winry Rockbell: She'd take it apart and make it work better.
Izumi Curtis: She'd barf blood on it.
Gluttony: He'd eat the phone.
Lust: She'd have to watch how she presses the buttons with those finger lance thingies.
Scar: He'd destroy it.
The Truth: He'd take parts of it away in exchange for a glimpse of "that thing."
Rurouni Kenshin
None of them would be dealing with an IVR. They live in the 11th year of Meiji, which is 1877. Phones were invented just the year before. Lucky bunch, aren't they?
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Well, there you have it. The result of an overactive imagination gland. I hope you enjoyed it.
Laters!
Chopping down the Phone Tree...
