Phone-y baloney

Phones, like  many other things, have gone through multitudinous changes and each change comes faster than the last.  In the case of 4G, the change comes before it’s even arrived, since not many places even have 4G, but the companies are selling it as if it were universal already!  Although I don’t have a smart phone (I like to be smarter than my phone), here’s a pictorial progression, based on phones we actually own.  This oldest-looking phone has been altered so that it would work as a real phone if we had it plugged in but it still looks as cool and retro as it was before the update.

The next phone ,which we still have connected upstairs and use, is one that our daughters’ friends often didn’t recognize as a phone.  I still remember when not only was this the norm, although probably only available in black, but there were party lines. Wow, am I old or what?? 🙂  In Omaha, we shared with only one other family, but it could be so annoying when you wanted to make a call, lifted the receiver…and heard someone else already talking.  Occasionally we’d have to ask if the other person would please let us make our call and then call their party again.  They weren’t always very cooperative.

My grandparents lived in rural Nebraska, near the town of Surprise, a name that probably sounds funny to you but to us, who were used to it,  just sounded normal.  Their party line was much more extensive and you could tell by the number of rings whose phone call it was.  When someone called, you picked up your phone…and heard the sound get softer and softer as all those who wanted to listen in, picked up their phones as well. There was evidently no shame in eavesdropping; it was all need-to-know and everyone needed to know! Needless to say, if my grandparents had anything private to say, they went into town and called on the pay phone.   Their phone hung on the wall.

Our current home phone, complete with several phones and the invaluable caller ID.  How many people still have land lines?  Raise your hand (or your phone.)  Land line is becoming a retro word along with these phones.

My not-so-smart phone.  Our girls some years ago had even older versions of this phone and when stopping by the Verizon kiosk at the mall to ask a question, were mortified when the guy working there said something to the effect of,  “Wow, that’s a really old phone!”  Hey, old is just another word for retro and retro is cool, plus we were paying for the phones, so…  These phone really aren’t all that great, but they were the last ones we could get free from Verizon with a two-year contract.

There should probably be a blank space after this to indicate that at some point I know there will be a Smartphone/smartphone in our future, although it probably won’t be as smart as the phones of many other people. Who knows what it will look like by the time we break down and get one?  With our first phones, all you could do was call people (if no one was on the line) and at one time you even needed an operator to help. Now you can not only call on your phone, you can use the alarm, set a ring tone, read emails and more.  Phones, as well as the times, they are a-changing!