Just for fun: Pre-Cell Phone Stories

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll start: My best friend and I were supposed to meet for coffee after work at a Starbucks neither of us had been to. She was often late so I didn't think much of it. But then it was a really long time. Suddenly, I had a lightbulb moment. I asked the Starbucks barista if there was another Starbucks on that road nearby and they said yes. They called the other location for me and there she was! We bought our first cell phones the next week together.

This happened to me in DuPont circle. I had just moved to DC and hadn't realized there were two Starbucks in DuPont.

[Anonymous]

Mine is actually kind of sad.

When my maternal grandfather died it was around Thanksgiving. He lived across the country. I was at my paternal grandparents' house waiting on my parents and brother to arrive from our hometown. My aunt managed to find their number and call there. She told me my grandfather died. I remember waiting and crying for three hours until my parents arrived. and then I had to tell my mother her father had died.

[Anonymous]

Life was so much better pre internet and cell phones.

Think of movie Pretty Women. Today it be a 30 second movie as in opening scene when lost would have host typed address into navigation or called hotel for directions.

[Anonymous]

I was late leaving my shift at Georgetown sometime in the 90s. I was due to meet my now-husband for a date. Realizing that I was really running late, I pulled over somewhere on MacArthur Blvd where I knew there was a pay phone. I called him from there and let him know what was going on.

I remember using that pay phone at least one or two other times.

[Anonymous]

So, so many!

My grandparents often made a three hour drive to visit us. My grandmother always wrote out a note and pinned (with a straight pin) it to the rear passenger seat:

“We are Lyle and Lily Larlo, ages 76 and 77, on our way to visit our daughter Jane at 123 Main St, Rico Suave, CA. Her phone number is [phone].”

Also, before my grandparents would leave their house, my GF would call the State Police barracks adjacent to a steep mountain pass to ask for a weather report. This was a common customer question as the location was prone to becoming impassable during high winds, snow or rain. If the trooper at dispatch gave the all-clear, they’d leave.

But, they’d call our house phone and let it ring 4 times and hang up - our signal that they were leaving and so we could start timing their arrival.

We’d do the opposite when we’d arrive safely home - let their house phone ring 4x and hang up. No long distance charge this way.

[Anonymous]

I graduated from a Fairfax County HS in 1989.

I’d have to make certain I had enough quarters to be able to call my mom for a ride home after school. There was one pay phone just outside the covered main entrance of the school.

My parents didn’t have an answering machine, so if there was no answer( “Oh my gosh, Mom! Where are you? I gotta get home!”) I could hang up and get my quarter back and have to come back. There was always another student waiting to make a call.

[Anonymous]

PP and I spent my freshman year of college waiting until 11:01 p.m. to call my boyfriend “long distance” from Blacksburg to Harrisonburg. It was cheaper after 11.

When my brother went to Tech in 1982, his dorm had ONE pay phone on each floor.

[Anonymous]

PP and sometime around 1996, I had a push to talk cell phone that my Nextel employed BIL gave me. It was really for emergencies only. Was on Rt. 123 and got caught in a traffic jam- I could tell we were going to be stuck for a while.

I whipped out my phone to call my office or my husband. The passenger in the car next to me handed me a piece of paper and asked if I’d be so kind as to call her husband.
I made the call for her!

[Anonymous]

We had the rule that if you called home from a long distance location, you'd call collect. A live operator would place the call and ask if they would accept. They'd say no and call you back to save collect charges.

I started college in 1972. Long distance calling was a serious matter when I was growing up, and I had only made a couple of them in my life, with my parent's permission (you'd tell the operator if you were calling station to station or person to person). Somewhere in that time direct dialing became available, but the first time I called my parents using that I honestly did not know how to do it (couldn't do it from the college dorm, this was on a college break at a friend's house in CA).

I remember racking up some huge long distance bills when I was first living along far away from the friends I was closest to from college. But of course, we wrote letters!

[Anonymous]

On 9/11/01, all of the local landlines were jammed and you’d get either a busy signal or a tone with a recording, “dooo dooo dooo…all circuits are busy”

This lent to the eeriness and terrifying aspect of this horrific day in the DC area.

Something this generation will never hear or recognize: a busy signal.

I once left my apartment phone off the hook for an entire day because I didn’t want my boss to reach me on a Saturday and call me into work.

[Anonymous]

My first job after grad school is near 11th & Penn. my mom worked around 19th and K. One beautiful day we decided to walk and meet at the White House for lunch. We never found each other. She was on the side closest to her job and I was on the side closed to my job. We each thought to call my mom’s work friend (who was also a family friend) to see if the other had also called the work friend. The friend said she could hear the same protest that was happening in the background of both our calls, but we never actually saw each other.

[Anonymous]

I was supposed to have dinner with a guy who I had hung out with in college from time to time. But the week before we were supposed to meet, I ran into him on campus and he was with some friends and he completely ignored me when I said hi. So when it came time to meet him for dinner, I emailed him saying I couldn’t make it and then watched him wait at the bus stop for 20 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, so many!

My grandparents often made a three hour drive to visit us. My grandmother always wrote out a note and pinned (with a straight pin) it to the rear passenger seat:

“We are Lyle and Lily Larlo, ages 76 and 77, on our way to visit our daughter Jane at 123 Main St, Rico Suave, CA. Her phone number is [phone].”

Also, before my grandparents would leave their house, my GF would call the State Police barracks adjacent to a steep mountain pass to ask for a weather report. This was a common customer question as the location was prone to becoming impassable during high winds, snow or rain. If the trooper at dispatch gave the all-clear, they’d leave.

But, they’d call our house phone and let it ring 4 times and hang up - our signal that they were leaving and so we could start timing their arrival.

We’d do the opposite when we’d arrive safely home - let their house phone ring 4x and hang up. No long distance charge this way.

How would the family know not to pick up the phone if your grandparents were calling to let it ring 4 times?

[Anonymous]

I remember trying to meet people and changing my voicemail to say where I was. “Hi, you’ve reached so and so. If this is John, we left xyz club and are heading to…meet us there!”

[Anonymous]

Lol! 🤣🤣🤣

OP, that story is hilarious!!

Here’s mine:
A neighbor/friend & her family had planned on going to Disneyland w/my family.
Since our kids were close friends - they were all super excited + couldn’t wait.

Well we decided to follow each other there on the freeway.
On our way there, my friend suddenly and unexpectedly pulled off the road prior to entering the freeway.
I was confused yet by the time I actually took notice > there was no way for me to pull off the entrance to the freeway so I continued on my route, assuming they would eventually catch up.
I even drove in the right, slower lane.

Well we arrived at Disneyland & still no sight of them.
We all entered the amusement park thinking we would see each other eventually, right??
W-R-O-N-G!
We spent the entire day there + never ran into them.
My kids were bummed out and wanted to leave early since they had wanted to spend their time there hanging out w/their friends, not boring old Mom.

Well the next day I asked my friend why she had not entered the freeway when I did.
Her response?
That while driving she had noticed that she was low on gas and had to stop off at the gas station before entering the freeway.

Looking back, I think to myself….
“If only we had had cell phones back then….the trajectory of our day would have been so much better.”

Sheesh.

We drove caravan style to Disneyland with another family. I'll never forget them pulling up along side us, honking the horn, and holding up a handmade sign to the window that said "DAVE HAS TO PEE".