Thank you for calling Technical Support. All of our technicians are currently busy helping people even less competent than you, so please hold for the next available technician. The waiting time is now estimated at between fifteen minutes and eternity. In order to expedite your call, please punch your 63-digit product identification number onto your telephone touch pad, followed by your product serial number, which can be found in a secret compartment inside your computer where, for security purposes, it is printed in the smallest typeface known to mankind. Do that now.

(Lengthy excerpt from Mahler's "Lugubrious" Symphony in C Minor)

Thank you again for calling Technical Support. We recommend that you sit at your computer, preferably turning it on at some point, and have at hand all your floppy disks, CD-ROM disks, computer manuals and original packing materials in order to allow the technician to aid you in the unlikely event that he ever takes your call. It would also be helpful for you to refrain from sobbing while explaining your problem to the technician. Shouting obscene threats will cause you to be immediately disconnected and blackballed from further communication with Technical Support, not only from ours but that of every other electronics-related firm in the industrialized world.

(Medley of Hootie and the Blowfish hits rendered by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)

Thank you once again for calling Technical Support. In order to enable us to better assist you, it would be helpful to know more about you and your equipment. Have you called Technical Support before? If you have, please press the numeral "one" on your telephone touchpad. If not, press the numeral "two." If you are not sure, using the letters on your touchpad, spell out the phrase: "I am confused and despondent and quickly losing the will to live." Once you have finished, hang up your phone and make arrangements to sell your computer because by the time the technician takes your call, it will be obsolete, and you will be too senile to use it anyway.

(Rangoon Opera Company's classic 1963 recording of Wagner's "Ring Cycle" in its entirety)

Thank you for calling Technical Support. Unfortunately, all of our technicians just went out for lunch. This means that to the estimated waiting time we gave you earlier, you may now add at least another two hours.

(Wayne Newton singing "Danke Schoen" 1,743 times)

Thank you for calling Technical Support. Before talking to the technician about your problem and risking the possibility that you may be wasting his valuable time, please ask yourself the following questions: If my monitor screen is dark, is it possible I have forgotten to plug in my computer or, alternately, that I have been suddenly struck blind? Have I exhausted every possible means of help before utilizing the sacred, last-resort-only telephone option? Have I sent a fax to Fast Fax Technical Support? Have I consulted my manual? Have I read the Read-Me notice on the floppy disk? Have I called up my know-it-all geek cousin who I can't stand but who can probably fix this thing for me in under five minutes? Have I given the central processing unit of my computer a good, solid whack? If you can not honestly answer "yes" to all these questions, please get off the line immediately so that our overworked technicians can help those truly desperate customers whose suffering is so much greater than yours.

(Recording of Tibetan monks performing a six-day chant celebrating the reincarnation of one of their recently deceased colleagues into the form of a salamander.)

Thank you for calling Technical Support. You may not be aware that this week we are featuring a discount on a number of popular CD-ROM titles you may wish to purchase, such as the best-selling Porn

Doubler, which allows you to access erotic material from the Internet twice as fast. If you would like to hear all 26,000 titles read to you, shout "Yes! Yes! Yes!" into the telephone now. This will not cause you to lose your place in line for Technical Support; in fact it may jump you ahead of several other callers.

(Tape loop of background music from the soundtrack of Johnny Mnemonic starring Keanu Reeves.)

Thank you for calling Technical Support. Our electronic sensors indicate that you are about to slump over and die from a massive frustration attack combined with severe dehydration from lack of food and water. Before doing so, please take a moment to place your telephone receiver back in its base and switch off your computer so as not to wear down its internal battery. As a non-living person, you will have no further need of Technical Support and so we regretfully must remove you from our list of registered product users. Remember, we valued your patronage and were happy to serve your needs. Do not hesitate to have your heirs or beneficiaries contact us should any further technical problems arise.