Have you tried to buy a phone lately? I'm talking landline phone. In your house. The kind of phone you can put on your shoulder and talk to your mother while you stir the spaghetti sauce so it doesn't burn. You CAN'T find them. The only things available these days are all cell phone wannabes.
I want a REAL telephone. And OLD telephone. As it happens, when we were growing up (way back through the mists of time). The phone company owned the phone. We were one of the first families on the block to actually BUY our own telephone, and it was pink (the same color as our house). I loved it.
The phone company was made up of grumpy old men and they didn't want people to have extension phones. It was a BIG no-no, but somehow my Dad got hold of an old Art Deco telephone, and he ran the wires and we had TWO--count 'em--TWO phones in our house.
As a kid, I found it hard to lift the receiver of that old phone--it was HEAVY, and I didn't like the phone. Where had it come from? Did it have cooties? When the phone rang, I'd run to the front of the house to use the pink phone just so I wouldn't have to use that terrible old phone.
Of course, now I would KILL to have that phone. I've seen similar phones in antique shops, not in as good shape, and they want between $60 and $100. (The graphic on the left doesn't do that phone justice.)
Since I can't have the phone of my dreams (or at least I'm too cheap to get it--and where would I put it?), I've given it to my character, Tricia Miles. She keeps it in her Haven't Got a Clue bookstore where she sells vintage mysteries. When she uses it, it takes her back to the days of Agatha Cristie and Harriet Vane and getting lost in their adventures.
Maybe what I really need isn't an old phone, but more time to read mysteries.
That sounds good to me.
I actually bought a "regular-looking" phone last week from Amazon. It was the AT&T 1856. The one I had before it broke down which amazon is also selling is AT&T 950.
ReplyDeleteWhy not get the phone and read more? LOL. I too want the old phones back. You can't possibly do as much with a cordless as you could with the clunky old receiver (and handly weapon) tucked into your shoulder. I always had very long phone cords so I was all over the house while on the phone. I wonder if that's why I don't like to talk on the phone now? LOL
ReplyDeleteI am a new phone-hater! My phones are all old, hanging-in-there types. I can't find a wireless version with good sound quality and good ergonomics. Bah! For wireless I finally went to a Plantronics headset (years ago) and haven't looked back since. Ooh, you can do a *lot* of stuff around the house with a headset on...or type notes on the computer, if it's one of THOSE calls. And you don't get neck cramps!
ReplyDelete(But mostly, I just stay off the phone...)
--Doranna