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The service you have grown to love was developed by California sibling emigres, Jonah Peretti, 27, and Chelsea Peretti, 23, who are often spotted prowling around downtown Manhattan.

"Originally the line was more of a personal service than anything else," explains older-half Jonah. Chelsea is quick to chime in, as she picks at perfectly manicured navy blue nails: "We both needed to take some time out from partying. Things were getting out of control. We were meeting so many people back then [in August], that we would get calls non- stop-morning, noon, and night." Jonah finishes her thought: "We needed some sort of service to stop the onslaught of...well, admirers, really, is what it was." "Yeah," Chelsea nods, lazily. "It is really important to me to have time for myself."

Putting their heads together, the two came up with a personal number they could each hand out to fend off the extreme attentions and irritating fawning of NY's 20- something set. "Particularly troublesome were those damn Sevigneys, not to mention the Hiltons and the Sedaris'" Chelsea snorts. Her brother adds: "It was always like: 'Hey guys! We're all cool siblings, that's so cool, we should party, we should hang out, we should get drinks, come to our photo shoots. But that's not our thing. We're not really into all that."

Pursuing freedom from an oppressive number of social ties, Chelsea, a stand-up comic and writer, said to herself, "let's make this stupid thing FUN!" The sibs employed comedians Dennis Quinn and Becky Poole to help create voicebox personalities for their rejection line phone tree.

The line's main greeting was originally recorded by Jon Stewart and Conan O'Brian in unisong. In a last minute switch it was canned, replaced by Jonah's own voice. As he explains "we switched it because it was starting to get all celebby and out of control, and that was just what we were trying to move away from." The Comfort specialist is Poole, the Sad Poem is Quinn, and the Unrealistic Hope is Chelsea, herself.

"I guess the people we rejected thought the number was cool or something," surmises Jonah, "Because we tried to call to check our voicemail one time, just for fun, and the line was completely busy." Chelsea sets down her cosmopolitan: "And then it was like blee blee blee blee blee blee blee blee blee, like totally busy, every time we tried to call. It was outrageous! We literally couldn't believe it!"

The unknowing entrepreneurs could hardly have imagined their personal project could have achieved such popularity. Funding has been pouring in, investors are constantly pitching angles, and exclusive media partnerships have secured Rejectionline.com's position as the market leader in rejection services. Forbes recently estimated the value of the Peretti siblings' privately held telecommunications empire at somewhere near 7 billion dollars.

"We can't believe it," shrugs Jonah, sinking into his new 2 million dollar couch. "I quit my job and now we just hang out and sortof try to make sense of it all." Chelsea reaches for her Cosmopolitan. She sips, strokes her feather boa, and smirks: "Fuck it."

New! Rejection Line featured in Observations Vol. XXVI

Please direct questions to info@rejectionline.com. Due to the unanticipated popularity of the Rejection Line, some callers may have trouble connecting. To avoid periodic service outages, we are adding additional voice/data routers to our server farm. Please be patient as we upgrade our system. Copyright 2001, all rights reserved.