Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Call Me


I have a part time job right now and I remember sitting at my desk for the first time and staring at this. 



I literally haven't used a "normal" phone in over 5 years and I didn't know if I would even remember how to.  We haven't had a home phone in years and years and I haven't worked in years so it's been cell phone only.  

And I know this shows my age......but I just started thinking of the evolution of phones in my lifetime. 




I remember having a phone like this.  I especially remembered having a phone like this at my grandparents house.  They had a party line.  Their whole neighborhood used one line and you would have to pick up and listen and make sure no one else was on.  (So you could basically listen to anyone's conversations.........CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?)


This looks like what we had in my house growing up.  Not even a mobile phone.  And I lived in a tiny town so you only had to dial 4 numbers to dial anyone in town.  FOUR NUMBERS!



Oh and of course when we got home from school trips or ball games we had to have a coach/teacher let us in the school or gym and call our parents on the pay phone to come pick us up.  And then wait around the dark parking lot. ha! 


I think when I was 16 my parents let me have a phone in my own room.  That was such a big deal to me.  Teens carry phones with them everywhere now - I was just glad to have one in my room.  And I had a Swatch phone and I LOVED it.  I took this to college.  I went all through college without cell phones.  We didn't even have caller ID when I was in college.  Which actually was so much more fun because I went to a small college where everyone lived on campus and so one of the favorite things to do was prank phone call.  I have never laughed so hard in my life as I did being on both ends of prank phone calls.

And someone mentioned below answering machines with the little tape.  Oh yes - we had one in our dorm room that we worked HARD on our message. 


It's hard to fathom now that I drove to college almost 5 hours away a lot in the dark alone with no cell phone.  But we did it.  And the year after I graduated college .......I finally got this baby - a bag cell phone.  I only used it for emergencies.  

Eventually I had something like this.  And of course now I've moved on to a smart phone like most everyone else.  And I can't even leave my house without it or I feel naked.  If you would have told 16 year old me or 22 year old me that one day I would have a phone that was basically a computer and would carry it constantly and could even watch TV on it - I would think you were CRAZY! And I would have loved to have had texting back in high school or college.  I can barely remember a world without texting or the internet, can you?

It's just funny to think how far phones have come in my lifetime.   I guess I'm just showing how old I am.   But then again......it's funny to think how far my hair has come..........

Thank goodness a lot of things improve with time, huh?

What will have 20 years from now?

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