Posted on March 10, 2018
Do you still have a landline?
If you don't know what a "landline" is, you probably don't have one LOL!
You see, way back when, a bajillion years ago (well, okay, just from 1847 to 1973), there were no such things as cell phones or mobile phones. ALL telephones were landlines. You couldn't take your telephone with you. It was basically attached to your house. |
| Back in the old days, everyone would understand that this photo shows a little brother listening in on a phone call - and, almost for sure, he is not supposed to be doing that!!! |
And, yes, that meant that everyone in a house shared ONE phone line. I guess there were some rich or brave folks, plus a lot of work-at-home types, who paid for a second line, but almost everybody had one. If your big brother was tying up the line for hours, talking to his buddy or his crush, you might complain, or you might want to listen in on an extension (which was another phone, ALSO tied to the house, that was on the same line), but one thing you couldn't do was just make your own call on that extension.
It also meant that just anybody could answer the telephone. If your own friend or crush were to call you, it was possible that your parent or sibling would answer - and maybe grill them, or you, or tease them, or you!
Not to mention the problem of someone answering the landline, finding out the call was for you - and you weren't home. Oh, the horrors of your friend or crush trying to leave a message with your nosy sister or obnoxious uncle!
Most of us didn't grow up having phones in our bedrooms. Our families had one line and maybe two or three telephones - but kids almost always had to talk on the phone in front of the family - in the hall or the kitchen or living room...
Unless we got looooooong cords:
 |
| Even the looooooooong cords were never long enough! |
There were a lot of family fights, in some families, over phone calls and forgotten messages and spying on the extensions and will-you-please-get-off-the-phone-my-call-is-so-much-more-important!!!!
You probably know all that, because of movies and TV shows. Right?
Well, it was all true...
Good things about landlines...
Okay, there are some good things about landlines! For example, in an emergency, a neighbor might just want to reach whoever is in the house. And it's so much easier to make one call to say, "Did you know that your sprinkler seems to have become a geyser, and your yard is starting to become a lake?" or "Get out of the house! I've called 9-1-1 because it looks like ____" rather than leaving voicemail messages on three different phone lines and worrying because you don't have the phone numbers of two of the people living there... |
| Some of this is probably out of date. I think landlines are even more obsolete now than three years ago, when this graphic was made... |
My community has "security" gates, and it's better to have the gate-opening powers be attached to the landline than to a particular cell phone line, since more than one person lives in the house!
And those family holiday calls seem more friendly when you are calling "the house," and the phone passes from hand to hand to hand as you wish your uncle well, thank your aunt for the present she sent, and say hi to each cousin before catching up with the cousin that's just about your age.
Also on this date:
(Saturday of the first full week of March)
Plan ahead:
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