It was fine.
The Best part of that time was not being expected to be personally available every minute of the day. The phone was a part of your house and not a part of you.
I will never understand why android removed the ability to easily set notifications per app and per contact. my blackberry and my first android were great for that
now my phone just lives on silent and I’ll maybe respond to somebody within a few days
was not being expected to be personally available every minute of the day
I’m just not and people get used to it. I take some days to answer to texts, often leave my phone where I can’t hear it and it kind of works fine. If it’s really important, people usually try several times.
I like the DND feature that mutes everything but rings for repeated calls within a certain time frame - that way if it’s something important enough, I can get notified the second time around, otherwise I can toss my phone somewhere and not be bothered until I decide to look at it again.
Same here. I check it a couple of times per day but rarely have it on my person all the time. It’s usually on mute or vibrate, and I’ve set most notifications to hidden/silent except for the ones that matter to me.
Not covered in this image: having to learn how to be more discreet in your tweens and teens. You told your dad’s boss that dad “couldn’t come to the phone right now” and took a message, not that he was dropping a hot deuce and had run out of toilet paper.
Honestly it was pretty horrible when I think about it. Both my parents were very active in sports clubs and had jobs that involved getting a lot of calls at home. I had to answer the phone several times a day, yell, take notes when my parents weren’t home and wasn’t allowed to be on the phone for “too long” because someone else could call.
Shaniqua don’t live here no more…
It certainly made you practice your manners if you were talking to the dad of your crush.
Fishmonger, I’d like to speak to your daughter
click. Buzzing tone
I would like 3 halibut please! Delivered to my doorstep
“Hey Gramps, be a good little sheepshagger and get me Madam Fuckalicious on the horn, will ya?”
I see you also grew up in the phone call era
Greetings, fellow geezer!
get me Madam Fuckalicious
so disappointed that this wasn’t the username of op or the person you are replying to
It’s free. You can have it.
MadamFuckalicious@blahaj.zone. It’s a gamble.
True story: As a little kid, my mom taught us to answer the phone as such, “McTubbs residence, Fudgy speaking.” I still carry that etiquette to this day.
The world was different when you had to walk the streets and have random encounters with others.
How terrible, learning social skills for talking to a diversity of people and contexts.
You could pick up a second phone in the house and listen in, whilst not breathing
And your neighbors too, if you had a Party Line.
Some phones, you could unscrew the covers on the microphone and the earpiece. And then you could just take the microphone out, because it wasn’t wired in, it was just a loose piece that sat on contacts kind of like AA batteries.
Before caller ID came along, call waiting and three-way calling were a new thing for a while. I had one of the old Mickey mouse phones, and you could unscrew and take out the microphone on that one. So me and a buddy would take the phone book, pick two numbers at random, and then using three-way calling I would call each one of them as quick as I could, and then listen in as two strangers called each other. You got arguments, and accusations, and a couple of times a guy hitting on a girl who had no idea how he got her number etc. blah blah. I was certain I was a prank genius.
Later I started getting a bit more inventive like having two pizza places call each other, etc. But the best one was, in the white pages I found a Mr so and so Junior, and a Mr so and so Senior. I made those two houses call each other, and both houses were full of people, and they got into a big argument over who called who and they kept passing the phone around saying hey let me let you talk to your dad he’ll tell you what’s up blah blah and we’re just sitting there laughing and laughing. That one went on a while.
Caller ID came along pretty soon after that and the fun was over.
Don’t do it for too long though because you’ll die
Lost my sister this way. RIP Becky.
Also, if you made plans there was no reliable way to chase anybody up. So for example on a Friday you’d all agree to meet on Saturday in town by the park at 10am, then four out of the five of you would show up, you’d wait for 5-10 minutes and if Ashley didn’t arrive you’d just be like “Well, I guess we’ll find out if she’s still alive on Monday” and then just go about your day. In theory someone could call her that evening and find out what happened, but usually nobody bothered.
There was also a brief but very confusing crossover period where you could call a friend, her Dad would answer and say she’s already on the other phone (meaning a cell phone) so you’d make chit-chat with her Dad for five minutes in case the other call finished, which it usually didn’t.
EDIT: Also I don’t know if it was the same anywhere else, but where I grew up (UK) some kids tried to call a payphone from a different payphone and reverse the charges so they could chat for free, and the police showed up and told them off lol.
Yeah and sometimes, before my voice broke, I would be mistaken for my older sister when her boyfriend called. Which was awkward for everybody involved.
I too got a story like this: My sibling’s partner confused us - not to blame him, we do sound alike. I picked up and he gleefully invited me on a date. I deadpan handed the phone to my sibling.
Ahhh. Memories.
- Me at 11yr answering phone: “hello? I AM NOT <moms name>!!!
- Me at 16yr answering phone: “hello? I AM NOT <dad’s name>!!!
And:
- Also me: “MOM PHONE FOR YOOOOUUU!!”
- Mom: <normal tone cause she’s in the room near by> “did you ask who it was!?!”
- Me: <normal tone> “who’s calling please? <yelling>Mom, it’s Debbie!!!”
And lastly:
Kids will never get to experience the thrill of talking to your girlfriend about tonight while your little sister gets on the phone in the basement and makes “make out noises” loudly before giggling and hanging up.
My partner seems to exclusively communicate by yelling to me from other rooms/floors in the house.
So that yelling lives on.
Maybe get an intercom
And there would be one phone centrally located in the house, usually in the kitchen. If you were lucky the phone cord would be long enough to stretch into a closet or something where you could close the door and have a modicum of privacy. Otherwise everyone nearby would get an earful of your conversation. And you couldn’t chase your annoying siblings away because the phone line was too short.
The best was when dad would yell “GET THE PHONE!!!” across the house. I’d pick it up and it would be for him. I’d yell down “IT’S FOR YOU!!!” He’d’ have to run across the house and answer the phone all winded and shit. Good times.
When it was a telemarketer, we’d say “just a moment” and then sit the phone in front of the TV speaker. You’d hear little buzzy “hello? hello?” punctuating Jerry and George’s coffee shop banter. It was funny. Other times my friends would make sex noises in the background. Also funny.
Another fun one was answering the phone with a question like “is Becky there?” This would always throw them off. Can’t do any of this nowadays because now they just note that your number is an active one and sell it to data brokers (which is why I will never have “read receipts” activated on my phone)
I the early days of the computer phone scammers (the ones that pretend to be from Microsoft and try to get your IP address or whatever) my friend’s Mum would say “Hold on, I’ll turn on the computer” and then put the phone down, go do something, and if they were still there later she’d say “Almost there, it’s very slow.” and repeat until she got bored and then tell them she didn’t have a computer. One time she had a guy on for almost an hour apparently lol.
That’s literally how doors work. Someone knocks and it could be your sister’s boyfriend or your dad’s boss or your best friend or a marketer or a serial-killer.
Not a fan of those either TBH
And people used to just do that unannounced.
I mean, most people still do.
Now we always send a txt to be safe they won’t just ignore us
some folks never bothered to cover the reciever
