Just for fun: Pre-Cell Phone Stories
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Anonymous
This PP. Phones didn’t ring all the time. We’d generally know that our grandparents would be home 4 hours later. So, if our phone rang 4 times and stopped, it was our grandparents. If it rang a 5th time, we’d pick up. DH family took it a more complicated step further; his grandparents and parents would collect call using a code name. The operator would call, someone would answer and then the operator would announce “Collect call from Mr. Crabapple, will you accept the call?” You’d say no that you wouldn’t accept and no charge for the call. Sometimes, you might be able to talk over the operator and get in a quick “love you!” |
Anonymous
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PP and no area codes unless you were calling long distance.
I grew up in Fairfax County and the first 3 numbers in a phone number were hyper regional. I remember: 971-Springfield Mall stores 569-West Springfield 455-WS 644-Orange Hunt area of WS 250-Burke 255-Vienna 281-Vienna |
Anonymous
I remember when they switched to needing to use area codes all the time- I was in high school and heard it on the radio, and it was April Fools day, so I assumed it was a joke. |
Anonymous
Pre-answering machine days the phone would just ring and ring. So they would likely let it ring four times. If it rang a fifth they would answer. |
Anonymous
| I have a very old phone in my house, from the 1950's, and when that thing rings you can hear it in the yard. You also can't adjust the volume of the ring in any way. Even though it is rotary it was modified so that you can still use it to make calls. Kids love seeing it. |
Anonymous
Funny, I remember the opposite. Our cell phones were getting the message that all circuits were busy but our landline worked. |
Anonymous
| My mom once pointed out that, if there had been cellphones (or even landlines) in Shakespeare’s time, none of his plots would have worked out. |
Anonymous
| Calling cards. The world seemed to revolve around pre-paid calling cards. When I had my son, I used a calling card to call my parents from the phone in my room. Arrive at Grand Central and need to call your grandmother that you're on your way? Calling card from the pay phone. Using the sole pay phone in your dorm? Calling card. I'm glad we've moved beyond those things! |
Anonymous
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I remember the account numbers for long-distance calls in college. We had room phones in the dorms but long-distance calls were pricy. My parents ( and many others) had account numbers that we would use to call home long distance. You had to call a main number and, when prompted, press the account number and the call would be billed to our parents. I imagine it was a better deal than calling collect and that was why they were used. We weren’t allowed to make unlimited calls to our friends under our parents’rules, so there was whole number-theft scam that we used in order to have long phone calls with long-distance friends. The account numbers were a certain length and had certain conventions. We would alter some digits and keep trying until a valid one went through. You could write it down and use it a couple of times but had to keep changing numbers so as not to get caught. I had friends who got lazy and would repeatedly use the same number when they found a valid one, or worse, share it among friends. They would inevitably get caught. The account owner would see too many calls that they obviously didn’t make, dispute them, and the phone company would investigate and trace. A friend racked up a pretty hefty bill that she had to eventually pay. I was judicious about my phone fraud, haha, and never got caught. I remember I used a Sprint number.
I think that has been the extent of my criminal activities. (Well, and using fake IDs… ooops) |
Anonymous
The Tempest? |
Anonymous
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I remember flying to college and whenever I had a connection and the flight was delayed, we would all run from the plane to the bank of pay phones (calling card!) to call the people picking us up to let them know we would be late.
I still don't like picking up people from the airport but back then you didn't know a flight was late unless you remembered to call the airline (and had all the flight info). And then you still had to try to estimate and guess if they had luggage, what time they would actually get to the curb, etc. There were definitely times when we totally missed each other. However, if you parked back then, you could actually meet people at their gate! |
Anonymous
| Before cell phones I used to call a girlfriend just across the state border (15 miles away) and it cost me 15 cents per minute. Then every month I would pay 2 phone bills. One for local and the other for long distance. |
Anonymous
| As a kid someone taught me this hack: dial 999 then last 4 digits of your number then hang up. It made the phone ring! Well that was entertainment before the internet. |
Anonymous
I remember that! I've known young people who don't understand the difference between the phone port on a printer/fax and the ethernet port, and if they can't fax (assuming this is not a place with VOIP phone systems) they think it's the internet down. |
Anonymous
Yes, after getting gas my friend & her family did go to Disney. Like us - they had also assumed that they would run into us as well. Yes > in hindsight we should have set up a place to meet in the event that we got separated. (Bad planning!) I also wish my friend would have let me know ahead of time that she needed to stop for gas, but I can understand how sometimes people do not think about this until they are in their car. Oh well. We laugh about it now, twenty years later…… |