The Land Line

As part of the changing technological times, our home phone, the land line, has been relegated to the same status as a junk email account. You know, the number you use when filling out forms from companies you don't want to hear from again, at least on your cell-phone. The number is still listed in the church roster because Jules and I didn't want to be fielding calls for each other or Wookie if we used one of our cell numbers.

So if a call is not from someone in the church, it is most likely a sweepstakes offer or the Republican party.

We get phone service from the cable company. "Could I get a discount if we dropped the phone service" I asked. "No" said the salesman. He explained the phone is now considered a free feature. Just like Yahoo and Google email accounts. Alexander Graham Bell must be rolling in his grave.

But the cable company does have a neat app. I can get land line voicemail forwarded to my cell phone. That's good since no one used the land line much and messages would lie dormant for weeks.

While I was at work the other day, my cell chimed to let me know the land line had a voice message.

I recognized Ty's voice "Mom, pick up the phone. I need your help". I hit redial and was surprised to hear a woman's voice. It was a bank manager in another county. "Uh, my son called from this number about fifteen minutes ago" I said. Turns out Ty was at job interview and locked his keys and phone in the car.

"Only had one number memorized, huh?" I joked with him when I brought a spare key to his rescue.

"Well that one and my own cell" he replied.

Me too. By the end of the day I placed the numbers of family and a few neighbors in my wallet.

In the seventies, it was a cub scout requirement to memorize your home phone number. I memorized my Dad's work number too. Those two numbers and a dime gave me complete access to all the phones available to my family. Not anymore, and the land line is now probably the least important number to memorize.

One feature of a land line used to be the "line" physically connecting the phone to the wall. Over the years, we migrated to the wireless handsets. Eventually those handsets all migrated to the handset graveyard - Wookies's room where they languished till their batteries died. I finally went to DI (Goodwill for those of you back East) and bought an old phone that connects to the wall. It is inconvienent, but at least we know where to find it.

We'll continue to keep the land line as long as it is free, but if you really want to talk to me, call my cell.