Lunch Lady Sings - And Nation Eats It Up -- She's Become An Unlikely Underground Celebrity

WASHINGTON - The voice on the daily recording is as fresh as a spring morning and as down-home Southern as fried green tomatoes:

"Gooood morning or good afternoon," says the enthusiastic voice. "The soup of the day is going to be New England clam chowder. . . . We're going to have fried fish, beef macaroni, and for the vegetable, we're going to have . . . MMM MMM MMM good ol' mashed potatoes and gravy!"

Then Sharon Adl-Doost, known to thousands across the country as the Lunch Lady, breaks into song. Today's selection: "The Electric Slide."

The voice cracks. The pitch and lyrics are off. But you keep listening. And so do many others.

Officially, this is just the phone message that tells people at the U.S. Geological Survey headquarters what's for lunch in their cafeteria each weekday. But somehow, the recording (1-703-648-7777) has become a national phenomenon. And Adl-Doost, the grill chef who reads it, has become an underground celebrity.

Her telephone number is programmed on speed dial buttons at offices nationwide. At a biotech company in Palo Alto, Calif., workers put her on a speakerphone every morning. Employees at movie studios in Los Angeles call in regularly. A Seattle advertising firm plays her menu over the loudspeaker system.

Fans on the Internet chat about her songs and their affection for her. Some have shown up at the USGS headquarters in suburban Reston, Va., unannounced, to meet her. Hundreds of others have sent letters to say how much her daily message means to them.

"It's this little moment that makes you stop and is always funny and always benign and upbeat in a kitschy way," said Gordon VeneKlasen, a New York art dealer who said he calls almost every day.

In jaded, seen-it-all New York, the Lunch Lady is the perfect antidote to the daily grind, VeneKlasen said. "For those who listen up here, it sounds totally fresh, innocent and genuine. It's not cynical in any way."

Adl-Doost's path to telephone fame began about three years ago, when people in her building began to worry about losing their jobs in the federal downsizing. Adl-Doost wanted to do something to cheer them up. So one day, after reading the daily lunch menu into the building's voice mail, she sang "Always and Forever." From then on, the menus have included her renditions of everything from rock songs to country ballads to show tunes to Christmas carols.

People at the Geological Survey offices began passing out the lunch line number to friends and colleagues. Then by word of mouth, the Lunch Lady's popularity grew across the country and overseas. Building technicians estimate the line gets 50,000 calls a month, enough to make them worried that Adl-Doost's fans may overload the phone system.

Some of her fans have even called the cafeteria to speak to her. She heard from John Travolta, but she hung up on him because she thought it was a joke - until he sent her a T-shirt from his film "Michael."

"It's all kinds of people that call," Adl-Doost said. "That's what I've always wanted to do, just cheer people up regardless of who they are . . . It's something in me. The good Lord gave me the talent to make people happy."

She's the first to admit she can't sing herself "out of a bucket." But she still belts out tunes with abandon.

For 23 years, she's been getting up every weekday at 3:30 a.m. By 4:30, she's often walking the half-mile to work from the Reston house she shares with her parents, her 23-year-old daughter and her brother. For the next eight hours, she stands over a hot grill while people bark orders for hamburgers, Reuben sandwiches and extra fries.

But her recent fame has begun to change her life. Last year, a New York fan who is a creative director for Bloomingdale's asked her to read " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas," which played from one of the holiday window displays at the flagship store in Manhattan.

A London filmmaker, Leslie Mello, who became an obsessive caller a couple of years ago, is finishing up a documentary about her.

And now, Adl-Doost has acquired a New York-based manager, Vicki Wickham, who is helping the Lunch Lady produce a dance CD for release next month and has booked her on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show."

Still, Adl-Doost continues to make ends meet by working the grill for $10.63 an hour. Twice over the years, she said, her bosses have asked her to stop singing on the menu line, before relenting. If they try to stop her again, she said, she'll have to quit her job because those few minutes of song have become so valuable to her.

One day last week at 9 a.m., she wandered into a security guard's office, grabbed a phone and consulted some hastily scribbled notes.

Suddenly her voice turned as warm as your favorite kindergarten teacher's gone Dixie, as she described the day's menu.

She wished everyone a lovely day before plunging into her version of the Village People's "YMCA." Her hips started swinging, her head began rocking. Then, her right arm extended out like a rock star's. And for just a few moments, the Lunch Lady was on stage again, singing to the audience that loves her.