Subliminal messages and my phone experiment

I am just seeing a little too many subliminal messages recently. First it was junk mails that told me not to trash (what?)

Then came a coffee pot that claimed to hold eternally fresh jo (huh?)

What am I stupid?

The thing is, once in a while I notice the handset of my phone at my desk stinks. I figure someone must have slabbered generously in my absence. So last year I stuck a post-it there:

That's right, you can only dial emergency numbers from this phone. The result? It was almost as if people made a point to prove their rebelling guts. I have had all sorts of people picking up and dialing. I even had a tech support guy leaving voice mail for me from my phone!

I am no authority and I've never done research or what not. But I think people are generally not stupid. The key to these sort of things is probably being subliminal - the message has to not stand out like my note, rather, blend into the background, catch you off guard.

Last month I changed the MOTD of my VPN box to "you better get that rash looked at". We'll see how many people start scratching.