Henrietta, Texas, 1959: All my buddies were agog with Peter Gunn on CBS television. How could one guy be so cool?

With a Henry Mancini themesong featuring a jazzed-up boogie and a horn section, Mr. Gunn looked much like a skinhead of today except for the suit, tie, and wingtip shoes. He was always listening to jazz and smoking cigarettes, with his super-short hair, quiet manner, and the relentless interest of sultry women. Mr. Cool.

Later, he appeared in a movie that prominently featured his high-tech telephone answering machine, which was a reel-to-reel tape deck mounted in the wall. He was just too cool to have an old-fashioned answering service with a switchboard. This tape deck looked really neat in the middle of the wall of his living room.

And so, fifteen years later, this is probably why I bought the answering machine.

In the 70's, when answering machines first came out -- huge, bulky black boxes -- they were regarded with suspicion. It's mostly forgotten today that, at the time, reaching a machine instead of a human might be considered a kind of insult. Dehumanizing. Rude.

But I had seen Peter Gunn, so I knew how cool they were. I installed one for my Simple Simon Bookkeeping business, and it proved useful for the Thumbtack Bugle, too.

Not long after, Thanksgiving came around, and my mother and two brothers decided to give me a call. I came home and found the message.

My mother, clearly startled, is saying, "Hello? This is your mother. I'm just calling to wish you a ..." here she paused, and sang the rest, "Happy Thanksgiving Day!"

As she fumbled to hang up her phone, I could hear my two young brothers in the background, puzzled because she'd begun talking, and then suddenly was hanging up; they were saying What? What is it? And just before the connection closed, I heard her voice.

"G**damned machine," she said.

Huh? But it was so cool on Peter Gunn!