Things That You Might Not Know if You are Younger Than Me #1: Home Phones

I'm planning to start a series regarding things about how much the world has changed. It has changed so quickly that some of you might not even be aware of how things used to work. First up, home phones. They are not like cellphones at all.

Not even like this old one. These were cool though. Indestructible. And you could play Snake.

Now, I'm too young to remember party lines where multiple homes shared the same telephone line, but my home growing up had only one line for multiple phones (this was the most common situation). We had a phone in the kitchen, living room (this rotary phone is now part of the Savio theater prop collection), and my parents' bedroom. What this means is a call coming into the house would ring on all three phones. Two people might pick up the phone at the same time. Not only that, it meant that you had no guarantee of privacy, as someone could in theory be listening in from another room. Not ideal if you have a girlfriend and are trying to have a private conversation (that's a whole different story).

Speaking of rotary phones, how is this still being sold to children as a toy phone?

I had a toy like this growing, as did my mom.

That's not what a phone looks like anymore. Do kids even know how to play with it?

Another thing that has mostly gone away are answering machines (oddly, you can still buy them on Amazon).

This one is digital, but you can still buy tape versions.

You've probably seen them, even if you have never used one. The point was to be able to know who had called you when you weren't home. It's like voice mail, but a lot more physical. Plus, when you play back a message, everyone can hear it. Really fancy ones even let you access your messages remotely, as seen in this episode of "Friends". One of the more popular uses was to screen phone calls. Unlike with a voicemail, you could start listening to a message and then pick up if you wanted to talk to the person! This was before caller ID, so it could be almost anyone and no one has ever wanted to speak to a telemarketer.

Choosing your message was a big deal. Many were professional, some were humorous: Example & Example (How great is Friends?). You could even get prerecorded celebrity (or celebrity impersonator) messages. I was really excited when my dad said that he would use humor in ours. His idea of humor: "Well, you missed us again."

Before answering machines, there were answering services which is a live person version of voicemail. They still have these for businesses that want a personal touch, but I first heard about them in the old sitcom "That Girl". The main character is an actress who always needs someone to answer her phone in case she's been offered an audition. 

One more thing that I have to mention before closing, we make phone calls now without even thinking about it (maybe not, who even calls anymore?) But phone calls used to cost different amounts. You had to consider if it was long distance (outside your area code) and even what time of day it was. To attract customers to their phone services, providers used to offer FREE NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS! It was a very big deal.