I saw one of those things on social media over the weekend — I don’t know what they are called — that read, “gotta love the irony of a generation raised on making prank phone calls only to be terrorized by daily robo-calls now.”
Amen!!!
Believe it or not, in the time it took to write that first paragraph I got three robo calls and three robo text messages. Four of them on my cell phone and the other two on the office line.
Fortunately, I do not have to answer my cell phone. Unfortunately, I do have to answer the office line, but have learned how to hang up pretty quickly.
In my childhood — the one that included only one phone in the whole house, a rotary dial version, with a very long cord that could stretch to my dad’s recliner in the living room, hanging on the wall in the kitchen — the prank calls were pretty much limited to a call to Miley’s Grocery where we would ask “do you have Prince Albert in a can,” and when they answered “yes,” we would reply, “well you better let him out, his wife is looking for him.”
Then we would dial a random number and ask the person on the phone if their refrigerator was running. If they answered “yes,” we would reply, “well you better go catch it before it gets away.”
I’m sure those were the standard variety that most folks my age used and I’m sure there were others we used too, but as is with many of those same people my age, I don’t really remember.
We have an old, red, rotary dial desk phone that still works, or I suppose it does if hooked up to a house phone line that still works. Today it is just a decoration on an old telephone stand in our foyer, but 20-plus years ago it sat on the counter of an outdoor kitchen next to our swimming pool.
We called it the Presidential Hot Line because of the color, but it was really just a plain old house phone. It did work, though, and it was fun to watch a five- or six-year-old try to figure out how to use it when they needed to call their mom or dad to come pick them up after a pool party. Those kids all grew up with push-button phones and/or cell phones.
Times have changed.
I remember way back when...
My grandmother’s phone, in the same room where that red phone sits today, was black and basic except it had different rings. It was a party line and it would ring one ring for our house and a different one for a different house down the road. If you were planning on making a call you had to pick it up, see if it was in use or not, and then either apologize or make a call. I’m not certain, but I think that it ended up just being two lines as party lines phased out and it was my grandmother’s number and my aunt and uncle’s number who lived next door.
Today we don’t even have to touch a phone to make a call or answer one. At times, though, that can be tricky too. Almost like a prank call.
The contact list in my cell phone began when I acquired an old phone of my daughter’s years ago when she upgraded, and then at some point I traded with my wife, or something like that, so I have contacts that were contacts of both of them over the years along with my own contacts.
That can cause problems like when one name is similar to another name, and the wrong name is punched when trying to make a quick call in a hurry while doing something else. It is also a problem when my phone is hooked up to my truck and voice activated.
My dad’s number used to be listed in my phone as Paw from my daughter’s contact list. Without fail every time I tried to tell my truck to call Paw, it called Paul Payne, an old friend of my dad’s. And every time it did, I would try to quickly hang up and Paul would promptly call back out of fear that I had bad news about my dad.
I finally came to my good senses and changed Paw to Joe Beeland in my contacts and that problem has been remedied...for now.
My main problem remaining is all those calls all of us get for car warranties, student loans, Medicare supplements and all other sorts of things that I no longer answer. First of all I don’t have any of that stuff, and secondly I figure if it is important enough for me to take the call, said caller can leave a message and I shall return the call if I so choose.
Phone’s ringing now, gotta go see if I’m going to answer it or not.
Most likely not, but my refrigerator is running so I better go try and catch it!
