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For a while I had one of the chunky old black AT&T desk phones set up in the living room, wired to our ISP-provided VoIP box. One afternoon my 7 year old niece
by floren 2y ago
For a while I had one of the chunky old black AT&T desk phones set up in the living room, wired to our ISP-provided VoIP box. One afternoon my 7 year old niece was visiting and we realized she'd never actually interacted with a land-line, so we spent the next hour playing with it. It took her a little bit to figure out the physical actions of lifting the handset and dialing the number, but then she had an absolute blast calling her parents, her grandma, my wife, and me. I snuck upstairs and called her, which surprised her.
When I was a kid, I liked to play with the old rotary phone in the shop, and I always wanted to goof around with mom's old typewriter. There's something about these very tactile old devices that appeals to kids (and adults)
- ghaff 2y agoTactile/novelty/etc. That said, we have probably (collectively) given up reliability and quality to various degrees for in-our-pocket (mostly) always-there ubiquity.
- dilap 2y agoI remember being a little kid playing with the landline, just punching the numbers randomly, and eventually the operator came on and told me to stop playing with the phone!
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoI remember being 16 and getting a call one Saturday morning from two teenage girls who "just dialed random numbers until a boy answered." Talked to them for three hours :-)
- chaoticmass 2y agoWhen growing up watching Americas Funniest Home Videos my brother and I would run to the kitchen phone to press 1, 2, or 3 to ‘vote’ for our favorite finalist.