Over a few weeks in the fall of 2001 a bunch of randy, lonesome lechers up late at night on a Yahoo masturbation chat room got lucky with a sex-crazed piece of jailbait calling herself Kathy McGinty. Her photograph showed a young blond with a smoldering gaze curled up barefoot on an unmade bed and wearing a school uniform that revealed the slightest peek of white panties. She had no trouble finding guys to chat with, and occasionally she’d invite them to call a phone number with a Chicago area code. “This is Kathy,” said the outgoing message on the voice mail. “Leave me a message. If you sound sexy enough I’ll call you back.”
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When callers asked why she sounded so funny, Kathy would apologize: “I’m sorry, I’m on the speakerphone so I can touch myself.” Many were unfazed by the occasional lapse or oddity, so absorbed in their own efforts they seemed hardly aware of her. Then Kathy would get angry. “You phone-fuck like a faggot,” she’d say. “I can’t feel your dick. It must be teeny.” Or she’d go crazy: “Check out my hairy balls!” “My muff has tusks!” When Kathy climaxed she sounded like she was being murdered. Invariably, when she started talking backward or announcing “Satan controls my robotic vagina,” the encounter would end on a dial tone.
The pair took out their ennui on virtual onanists because they were “easy marks,” says Erdman. “If botanists were really eager to talk about something fascinating, we’d have done that as well.” At first they amused themselves by harassing chat room denizens online. When that lost its thrill they put out the phone number and began collecting voice-mail messages. Then Rickert wondered if there was a way to talk to the callers without sullying themselves with actual conversation, and Erdman produced an old Yamaha sampler. They created a list of stock phrases to move the conversation along–and a bunch that might stop it in its tracks. Rickert recorded these in tones variously disaffected, bitchy, childlike, or carnal.
“Yeah, that’s the line,” says Erdman. “You could say they were child molesters.” To their credit, however, none seemed bothered when Kathy said she was in a wheelchair. In fact, it’s hard not to pity a few callers who seem genuinely interested in Kathy’s satisfaction. One old guy, after describing a series of gentle kisses to her face, lapses into fearful, vulnerable silence.
Last spring Erdman and Rickert tired of copying CD-Rs and re-released a Kathy McGinty “collector’s edition” CD with six extra tracks, including some early voice-mail messages, most notably one left by a fellow who dreams about seducing Kathy while wearing doctor’s scrubs.
