William Jefferson is now unemployed, leaving him more time to hang around his house and gaze longingly into what I hope is a now-empty freezer.

Please, please, can somebody send Charles Rangel back as well?

answering machine

"He left a message on her answering machine."

I've seen some variant on this phrase in print twice in the last two weeks, and each time the choice of phrase jarred me out of my reading rhythm. Does it seem as seem as purely anachronistic to everyone else? Especially when the context refers to someone talking on a cell phone, I doubt there is any separate answering machine involved. Not that I'm a huge fan of the phrase "voice mail" but at least it seems to cover more bases.
There are only three people I have semi-regular reason to call who have an actual machine to leave a message on (unless, of course, they happen to answer the phone). Two of them are of an older generation. I haven't had a landline since leaving New Zealand, and I haven't had a landline I actually used since I left for New Zealand.

So is the phrase "answering machine" so jarring to me only because I don't have one? Are they still an everyday feature of most people's lives?