PRE- cell phones. Did you have a phone in your room as a kid?

I had a phone in my bedroom but it was really just an extension off the main phone. We had a few running phones off the same line so there was always someone else in the house picking up a different phone and saying get off, it's my turn.

I don't know about "lucky." One of my friends brought along her 5th-grade son for a holiday visit, and not only was he on his phone the entire visit, he related some tortured tale to us about a love triangle in which he was involved, most of it taking place via texting. It seems even young kids are text-obsessed. I'm no fuddy-duddy -- I'm a millennial -- but when I was that age I hardly used a phone, and was even less interested in relationship drama. This will not end well, I'm afraid.

I was so jealous of our neighbors. They only had a wall phone in the kitchen but they sprung for a 10 foot long chord.

So the kids could actually sit in the closet in the hallway and talk on the phone! I kid you not.

Long cords,,yes, very long cords

I got an extension in my bedroom when I was 12 years old and it one of the most amazing moments in my life as a preteen. I screamed and screamed because it was a surprise from my mom. The phone was everything for a young girl in middle school. EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!

Newp. Had a single touch tone phone in the kitchen. Zero privacy.

Like R1, I had an extension phone when I was in my early teens, I thought I had "arrived".

R2, I think you're right. I'm a boomer and we had occasional drama at that age, but occasional is the operative term. That kind of nonstop involvement is inappropriate and more typical of high school. Kids are naturally influenced by peers and this makes it harder for families to have influence on values and judgment.

I did not have a phone in my room growing up. But a friend had a princess phone (what else!) shortly after they came out.

Yes. My brother and I had our own phones in our rooms. But, we had limits on how long we could talk.

I had this sexxxy little number in my room. But I didn't have my own PHONE LINE. That was the hallmark of a true rich kid.

But did you dial it with a pencil, R10?

We need to know.

My grandma got me a phone for Christmas from QVC in the '90s. I was 13. It was a black and white cat phone with lime green eyes and the first time it rang, it flooded my dark bedroom with neon pink, blue and green lights and It scared the shit out of me.

I had an extension as a teen in the 70s and 80s. My friend and I ran the wire ourselves, and it actually worked!

We had one in the family room, one in the living room and one in my parents bedroom. My father had a seperate line in his den, but we could use it sometimes.

One time he got pissed off and put in a pay phone, but that didn't last. One time my nasty brother drove me out of my attic room, which was rightfully mine, but pretending I had calls and I had to walk down two flights of stairs and by the time I got there they had hung up.

My husband use to take all the extra lines after a tenant moved out and add it to our phone line cord. Soon I was able to go anywhere in the building with my apartment phone.

Oh the hilarity it caused once when I came over to visit my neighbor, with my phone and we both had entered a contest for free furniture and the phones got mixed up.

We added a line for a dial up modem in 1995 or so. That was then also my own line and one other extension was put in the guest room / computer room. The bizarre thing is that after I moved out, my parents kept the line for TWENTY YEARS! Yes, I was home on occasion and used it - but my mom seriously thought I'd move back in and use the line again or something odd. They have 2 other lines & wired internet since 2002 or so. But that line was only just recently disconnected.

The kids who have cell phones aren't lucky - they are being bullied by them, and have become addicted to them as it warps their worldview. And cellphones have been linked to brain tumors.

We had a second "teenagers" line with extensions to that in our rooms. If you looked us up in the phone book, you'd see the main line in my father's name and right below it and indented it read "teenagers" and the other number. Many families I knew had the same set up.

But some friends would call the parents' line if ours was busy, especially that time at the beginning of the school year when Trudi Cohen showed up with bigger tits and a smaller nose.

I didn't like talking on the phone then and I don't like talking on the phone now. I was many rooms away from the nearest phone.

Nope, one rotary phone that weighed about 5 lbs. in the kitchen. Zero privacy! Fortunately, in the mid-80s we got a cordless phone.

One of my friends and her sister had their own phone line, like R18. On the line below her parents' number in the phone book, the entry was indented and read "Children's Phone".

You bet your sweet ass I did, R11.

No and none of my friends did, either.

We never had Touch-Tone® dialing because my father wouldn't pay extra to get it.

Same with Caller ID.

No way, Jose in our house.

Since there was only 1 phone in my house and no privacy, we resorted to written notes. Maybe this was a girl thing, but I loved creating, passing, and receiving elaborately written and sometimes illustrated, written "notes" back in junior high and high school.

r23's house >>>

Not only did we NOT have an extension phone, we had climb on top of a pole to use the phone.

Grew up in the 50s and 60s. We never had more than one phone. (Two adults, two kids, 3BR ranch house.) The phone was a yellow desk phone, but in the kitchen (my mother didn't like wall phones.) This was before the days of modular phone plugs, cordless phones, or even being able to OWN your own phone. (You had to rent them from the phone company.) I know we eventually got Touch-Tone, but I don't remember when. I DO still remember my phone number -- even back before all-digit dialing, when we had a word prefix (ours was DRake 6-)

I had this baby in my bedroom when I was nine years old, but i dialed it with my index finger.

I had to call Sarah every time I wanted to make a call.

Two cans and a string.

Yes.

I grew up in the '70s and '80s and was raised mostly by my grandma, who had a plain black desk phone in the living room. She had a 1950s "gossip chair" where you sat to talk and the phone sat on its own little table/tray, with a metal rack underneath for the phone book. When I was 12, she let me have an extension in my bedroom [italic]and[/italic] a Touch-Tone phone. Smell me!

I also remember those phone listings for "Children's Telephone" and thinking that was incredibly upscale and glamorous.

Everyone had those long extension cords. Ours was on our kitchen wall phone - something cool about wall phones now that I think about it. We would go sit on the back terrace for privacy. My parents had an extension phone in their bedroom. I got a white Princess phone when I was 17.

Those were good days.

My grandparents had this telephone.

Weighed a ton and I bet you could hammer nails with the receiver.

My first phone (shared line) was the Barbie "Solo in the Spotlight" telephone, purchased at the local Home Shopping Network outlet store! Such glamour! Wish I still had it.

Has anyone tried to buy a retro style, or old, land line phone? I want to get one.

I have my parents old 1963 rotary handset.

Avocado green, long curly cord, bare wires at the cord's end because it was hard-wired in a wall box at the baseboard.

Do you use it, R37?

It's not always a good thing. When I was 13 we had one number and I had an extension in my room. A lot of calls started coming and when I picked up the caller would hang up. One time I picked it up without knowing my mother was on the phone. I heard her talking and laughing with a male voice. She must have heard me breathing or something and yelled for me to put the phone down. A couple of days later a phone with a different number showed up in my room. My mother told me it was her gift to me. It wasn't long after that I realized my mother was fucking around with some other guy on my father, my hard working, generous, wonderful, decent father. That was the end of any kind of loving relationship I had with my mother for the rest of her life. Shortly before my 15th birthday my father told me he was leaving my mother and if I wanted I go live with just him. He didn't have to ask me twice.

Nope

like this?

My first phone for my bedroom was a Snoopy phone, it was from Sears. It was probably 1983 or 84

sad story, R39

Thank you R43. Yep, my mother lived the last couple of decades of her life miserable and alone. It wasn't just the affair. My father and I had many reasons to leave her. That was just the last straw. I just didn't want posters here to think less of my father or that he was unforgiving for just that. Gotta say if it wasn't for that phone she probably wouldn't have gotten caught, at least not as quickly.

[quote] Has anyone tried to buy a retro style, or old, land line phone? I want to get one.

I got a Princess phone from amazon. It looks like a rotary but it's pushbutton. It works but of course it's limited.

That's the one, r41. It predates modular plugs. The receiver is hardwired into the base.

I assume it still works.

Many years I gave my father a big button telephone when he developed a bad case of macular degeneration. I converted the wall box to a modular plug and programmed the speed dial numbers for him.

I walked out with the green Western Electric phone and put it in a cardboard box. My dad has been dead for nearly 20 years and that phone has moved with me to three states, still in that box.

Yes, but only when my parents sprung for my own line / phone number when I was 17 and became inexplicably popular. It was incredible. Prior to that it was the family phone in the Family Room, replete with answering machine, with the only other extension being in my mom and dad's room. No privacy. Then came extra-long cords. Then came the CORDLESS PHONE, which was a revelation. I have no idea why my folks agreed to give me my own phone number at 17 years old--we were not rich, they were misers and extremely strict. They tore a strip out of me when I installed a lock on my own bedroom door. I remember wearing the same two sweatshirts to school for an entire fall, and then worked steadily at a part-time job to finally buy my own stuff. It was a sweet luxury to have this line of my own, and there was no explanation...just "Here, you're getting your own phone line."

...this didn't stop my mother from barging into my bedroom without knocking, of course, one of those times being when I was giving my teen-dream boyfriend a serious blowjob, but I had my own line and answering machine, dammit. God bless the very early 90's forever.

I remember when we could first get touch tone in England, I'd seen them in America - begging my father to get them and him saying "I like my old phones, they're FAMILIAR!" and me thinking WTF?

Now I'm just the same - I hate getting new things I hear myself saying "I like them, they're FAMILIAR!"

I won in the end but they weren't nearly as cool as the American ones and for a long time only came on two tone grey and didn't even have a tone, but sort of clicked to catch up and looked like THIS >>

SNAZZY!

We had one phone and it was a party line. My mom threw a hissy fit when the phone company decided to discontinue party lines, and everyone would be switched to a private line. It was going to cost more money.

I was disappointed, too, because we loved eavesdropping on our neighbor's conversations.

Touch tone phones were the end of an era. No more dialing with a pencil eraser.

[quote]I was disappointed, too, because we loved eavesdropping on our neighbor's conversations.

In England we used to have ''cross lines" you'd dial a number and find yourself listening to a random conversation. They were fun.

What room?

[quote]Touch tone phones were the end of an era. No more dialing with a pencil eraser.

NOT so!

I just had an extension line in my room, my parents weren't going to pay for my own separate phone line. This was back in the 90s and if I remember correctly, if you wanted a second phone line in your house the phone company had to come out and physically install it. No way were my parents going to do that, either.

I had a touch tone, early 80s beige desk phone in my room. Similar to the person upthread, there was an office line for my dad, the regular phone line and the teenagers line.

My mom had a crystal Dynasty-style phone in her room.

My grandparents had that, too r34. I had forgotten about the attractive cord.

[quote]I walked out with the green Western Electric phone and put it in a cardboard box. My dad has been dead for nearly 20 years and that phone has moved with me to three states, still in that box.

If that was a rental - YOU OWE US!

Damn. I didn't expect to be the most spoiled person in the thread... pretty much everyone I knew had to add another line around that time for internet (which was also the "kids phone" when nobody was on the internet). The phone companies were drinking champagne day and night with this massive revenue influx. Little did they know what was coming...

My memory isn't the best for all of this, but AOL charged by the minute in the early days (94-95?) so we didn't use it much, but when they became unlimited, the line was in use all day - so then we had to get a second number. I had phone sex with so many random AOL guys in the M4M chat rooms. I'm so glad my bedroom & the computer room was nowhere near my parents' bedroom....though I was outed in 1996 thanks to AOL phone sex & thinking that whispering under a blanket with the door closed would block what I'm saying. Not a great situation back then.

No, r57.

My dad bought our two house phones when the Bell System was broken up. Owned them free and clear.

I have no idea what happened to the other one. I guess it stayed in the house when he sold it and moved to a retirement village.

I remember when you used to inherit the phones when you moved into a new house and often the number. You had to pay if you wanted an upgrade - or you kept them.

Do they still sell phones, I mean regular landline phones?

Until cell phones disrupted the apple cart, phone companies were charging their customers additional monthly fees for (1) Touch-Tone service, and (2) underground service (as opposed to an aerial service line up to the dwelling.).

Now kids today don't know why we say "dial the number" and or who Ma Bell was.

yes, they do, R61.

AT&T phones look like this now >>

Cheap plastic handsets.

Not Bakelite® as in days of yore.

No 1 phone for everyone

I used to like the Bell phone boutiques. Remember them?

Grammie bought me a princess phone for Moi room. I dialed with a pencil so my pretend nails wouldn’t break. It had an extra long cord so I could wonder around Moi bedroom.

When I was a kid, phone booths with pay phones were everywhere. And nobody vandalized them.

I never pull the folding door shut when I made a call. I had a phobia about the door getting stuck when I tried to open it.

[quote]Grammie bought me a princess phone for Moi room.

[quote]I could wonder around Moi bedroom.

Mon dieu.

We only had a rotary wall phone in the kitchen when I was a kid.

I thought it was a big deal when we upgraded from black to avocado green.

Never had a phone on my room. I’m not a phone person, so thank God for texting. Love my smart phone though

We had one phone in the 60s and 70s that sat on the bar. it weighed a ton and was red. My brothers and I called it the Bat phone. We never really used it though,because God forbid my bastard father would call (usually for mom to go pick him up as he was too drunk to drive home) and he got a busy signal.All hell would break loose. When we got a second line in my parents room,my bastard father,if you happened to be on it,would pick up the other phone and start acting like he was dialing,then would scream at you to get off the goddamn phone.No matter who was on the other end,wich is how most of my family figured out my dad was a lunatic alcoholic.He did that every single time he heard someone on the phone,drunk OR sober. I guess thats why I never really got into the habit of talking on the phone,still dont.

I was slightly envious, but the only thing I really used the phone for that was objectional during my youth was calling for free catalogs/brochures/samples, and calling phone sex lines and then hanging up when they started talking money. The intros were laughably ridiculous. Once we kept going further on a payphone only to be interrupted by the frau operator, saying it would be some crazy amount like 27 dollars for 3 minutes. We would also sometimes call people from school and hang up after they said hello who's this? We just wanted to hear their voice I guess. Was a laugh at the time. Sleepover fodder. There were also weird numbers or codes that would lead you on a sort of scavenger hunt or just an odd or unintentionally funny recording, that someone always became aware of. And we all wanted this kind of phone. I think they had it on Full House or Fast Times. Alarm clocks were made like this too. It was all the rage, you could buy them at Toys R Us.

I had a fuck buddy who was in his teens in the 80s and he told me about how those sex talk lines led him to come out. Did that 1-976-8585 number exist then?

Anyway, his parents were divorced and money was tight for him, his sister, and older brother, living with his mom so when the mom's brother's wife kicked him out, mom invited him to live in the basement of her townhouse to share bills. My friend described him as the epitome of basement dweller and his presence turned out to be more trouble than his financial contribution was worth.

One day the mom got a phone bill for a whopping amount and every extra charge billed was for 976 numbers or whatever that year's version was. Lots of them. She called the number to find out what it was, several times to confirm, and went straight to her brother, that guy in the basement, crying, wondering which of her sons was responsible. Her compassionate little brother held her hand, hugged her, let her cry on his shoulder, and agreed it had to be one of her boys.

Only the elder son, straight and a stud, was working as an apprentice to some trade and providing much of the food luxuries including a freezer, could account for all the times listed, either through something work related, or he was fucking every REAL woman he could find. Apparently as he passed my friend (and his friend who happened to be there after school) on the way out of the interrogation kitchen, he laughed told him, "you are in so much trouble. But I know it wasn't you, it was uncle stinky himself. I hear you guys in the next room."

R27, that was us, except for the phone number.

Whose idea was it to make calculator and computer number keypads the opposite of phone keypads? On phone keypads, the numbers start at the top; on computers and calculators, at the bottom.

[quote]I grew up in the '70s and '80s and was raised mostly by my grandma

You were that horrible that your parents abandoned you, like the cat?

[quote]if I wanted I go live with just him. He didn't have to ask me twice.

Another MacKenzie Phillips where you?

I never had a phone in my room - at least not until I went off to college.

[quote] My dad has been dead for nearly 20 years and that phone has moved with me to three states, still in that box.

Why don't you throw it away, like that mother did to her kid up thread?

Sometimes we didn't even have a phone in the house.

Even my rich friends did not have a phone in their room. The rich parents were smart and strict.

Yes, a private line too but I had to share it with my sisters. It was called a "Princess Phone". True story

My first phone number [in my bedroom] was 212-891-4501. I'm positive it's dead still so don't bother calling. My first phone away from home was nearly the same: 212-891-4500. I asked for the exact same number but couldn't get it.

your post reminded me, r83

the NYC phone company issued me with a really bad number - I asked for and got a better one and had to pay monthly for the privilege.

& the number wasn't even so great.

rather emotional..... still having mom and dads old beige rotary phone, they are gone, but the phone still works, ..... waiting still for that special call.

British payphone in the 70s.

American payphone in the 70s.

internal British payphone in the 70s

those wonderful wood like phone booths yes with the folding doors, in hotels and stuff.

intimate, private, fun.

god the old days were nice.....

and the American version >>

in our college dorm, 2 adjoining rooms shared a bathroom, the phone shared too, was in that bathroom....in the sixtys.

got to see peter elliott's cock and ass when i was on that phone, as he wiped.

pissed thyr gonna tear down those old 50's dorms now for a skyrise dorm instead.

fuk.

[quote]those wonderful wood like phone booths yes with the folding doors, in hotels and stuff.

We had these.

Looked good, but they stank of piss and cigarettes.

One of the last phone booths in Manhattan >

My parents gave me my own phone and phone line for my birthday at some point in junior high. (Mid 1970s). It was like this phone but in baby blue. They didn't spring for the log. I used to talk for HOURS on that phone as a teenager.

I fucking hate being on the phone now.

they wont remove that phone booth.

still used for covert operations...

Maxwell Smart last used that booth.

I still use a landline. I hate cell phones and refuse to own one.

The Americans might have had better telephones than us Brits, but our phone boxes/booths were much nicer than theirs, even if they did smell of piss and fags.

When they were first designed in the 1930s - the British public thought they were hideous and objected to having them installed on their village greens. When they replaced them with more modern things in the 80s there was a national outcry.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Two rotary phones in the whole house. The wall phone in the kitchen had a little nag cord on the receiver so you sit on the steps to talk. The princess phone in my parents room had a long wall cord and could reach into the hallway. You could sit in the doorway to your room and talk. No privacy, but who cared? I resale wasn't up to anything nefarious.

Am I going to have to fucking google to find out what a princess phone is?

What I love about cell phones is NOT using them - but calling people directly. I can call my brother and not have to talk to his wife etc...

No but the phone needed to have a long cord because it was dragged in from other rooms and always outside the door with the receiver inside. Talked for hours while parents banged on the door needing to use the phone. Or they would get on the other end and say, time to say goodbye

Princess Phones were often the butt of jokes in American movies "God, I hate my Princess phone!" stuff like that.

As a Brit I had no idea what they were talking about. Eventually, I found out.

My mom got me my own phone line for my room in 1994 when I was 14, it was right around the time that the caller ID boxes were available so it was extra hot shit. I spent hours on the phone, usually with a friend who also turned out to be gay. We both had cable tv in our bedrooms so we would watch the same channel, usually something trashy like psychic friends network or house of style and say cunty things about whoever was on.

As a kid, there was a beastly tan dial phone on the kitchen wall. My family was working poor, so no additional telephones. It started as a party line, and stayed as a monthly rental til the 1990’s when someone finally realized my parents were being ripped off. They haven’t found a phone they like since.

[quote]The wall phone in the kitchen had a little nag cord on the receiver so you sit on the steps to talk.

"Nag cord"?

aren't nag cords things that you had to pull out and would spring back?

Like this, R107?

I remember them well - my poor relatives had one, their only phone, on the wall in the kitchen, and plastic coverings on all the furniture.

My aunt and uncle still have their 1970s banana yellow rotary wall phone in their kitchen, with the cord that's 10,000 feet long. They have modern cordless phones in the other rooms, but for some reason the yellow wall phone has always stayed. It been so long, their kitchen would look really odd without it.

If I ever saw "children's phone" in a phone book, I'd cross that person off my list.

I can't recall ever seeing "children's phone" in a phone book, ever. Was that more of a regional thing?

[quote]I can't recall ever seeing "children's phone" in a phone book, ever. Was that more of a regional thing?

It was something I saw in NJ and PA phone books. It might also have been expressed as "Teenagers' Telephone."

a friend of mine did....but moi? are you kidding......what i had ( or rather brought into) my room was a pretty good size branch off a tree

i loved that looked really cool and had great energy. when i came home from school one day it was gone. thanks mom or dad.

This thread needs a musical interlude.

R83, my mother's cousin had a phone like that in her bedroom. I was mesmerized by it as a young child.

.........

........

I did. Eventually I got call waiting and caller ID on it.

I didn't get my own phone until I was in college. My first girlfriend bought it for me because she wanted us to have privacy (good times). However, when I get nostalgic about land line phones I remember how much of a hassle pay phones where. I used to go to a Bally's and they had 1 pay phone just outside of the locker rooms. There would always be some asshole who decided that they would just stand there and have some frivolous conversation while a long line of people waited to use the phone. I didn't mind if the person wanted to use up their quarter but some would proceed to add extra money and keep going.

Pay phones were such a pain in the ass, I don't miss them at all.

I hate cell phones more than pay phones

I had a pearl white slimline telephone with last number redial.

So where does Clark Kent change his clothes now?

[quote]I hate cell phones more than pay phones

Yes, as someone who always liked telephones (the sort being discussed here) back in the day - I'm amazed at how much cell phones don't appeal to me.

I liked my good old chunky touch-tone phones. I had one in every room. I never liked the ones with the buttons in the handle, whatever they were called. I liked wireless phones - but not aesthetically.

I miss being able to slam down the phone in anger. You can't do that with a cell or wireless, even a landline. All you can do is push the button hard and say fuck!

[quote]I miss being able to slam down the phone in anger.

r128 = Kojak

r125

But I have a Nercedes, swimming pool and room for a pony

Yes.

I had a Conair clear phone, it would light up when it rang.

I didn't talk on the phone enough to need one, I wanted it just to be able to say I had one. I think I may still have it in storage somewhere.

r131

Climber

[quote]I got an extension in my bedroom when I was 12 years old and it one of the most amazing moments in my life as a preteen. I screamed and screamed because it was a surprise from my mom. The phone was everything for a young girl in middle school. EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!

THIS!! Your post made me smile, R5. When I was 14 (early '80s), I got my own phone line as a Christmas gift, from my dad. I remember it vividly. He came over to open gifts, Christmas morning (parents were separated/divorcing). There was a series of numbers on the gift tag -- 9 0 6 0 6 9 5 (no dashes) -- from "Santa Claus".

I stared at it for a second, thinking, "Huh?" and started to peel off the paper. It was a white princess phone. It "clicked" and I EXPLODED!!! Jumping around the living room, screaming & squealing....and then practically tackled Dad on the sofa, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Mind you, my father had his own self-serving reasons for doing this. My parents were in the midst of a contentious divorce & he wanted to be able to call me at the house, without having to speak to my mother....ever. LOL (I can laugh because they ended up being friends in their old age). Whatever.....I didn't care about the reason. I had my own phone line!! This was HUGE as a teenage girl.

[quote]Has anyone tried to buy a retro style, or old, land line phone? I want to get one.

This company sells virtually every type of phone ever made in the US, very reasonably priced. The website is an old-fashioned mess, however, so it may take a while to find what you want.

There’s an incredibly bizarre instance of fateful landline use in that trashy new LifeTime biopic ‘ A Tale Of Two Coreys’.

A teenaged Corey Feldman is sitting in his bath/shower contemplating suicide (clutching his grandfather’s WWII revolver in his clammy lilywhite hands), when a phone mounted on the tilewall adjacent to him starts ringing. Feldman reaches across, tugs it loose by the cord and holds the plastic receiver up to his ear with a sniffle and hears Corey Haim’s chirpy (and very gay) voice through the wire, calling him for the first time. It’s a very romantic moment.

It’s also the first & only time I’ve ever seen or heard of someone having a landline phone wallmounted in their main bathroom. I grew up before cellphones and never knew this was a possibility or a done thing, but apparently in L.A. 1986 it was...

It was always so awful when you called a friend and had to talk to some silly housewife mom or grumpy father to finally get the kid to come to the phone. Kids today don't know how lucky they are.

We had a single wall phone in the kitchen. Somehow, my Mom managed to stretch the cord all the way to the living room (and God help anyone trying to get through the house when that cord was stretched tight). I was on the phone once (I never called anyone, only answered if someone else called, which was rare), and made the mistake to ask my Mom to quiet down while I was on the phone with my best friend's little sister, who was interested in me. When I finally got off the call, my Mom sternly reminded me that if I ever scolded her again, I'd have "her shoe up my ass"!

I had a phone in my room which was cool for me but met with mixed results for others. My parents used to leave me home alone to play golf in the summer. (I was like 10. Nowadays my parents would probably be arrested but anyway.)

One morning some neighbor of a relative called to tell us the relative had been taken to the hospital. The woman barely spoke English and she the way she pronounced our last name sort of sounded like an obscenity and the way she pronounced the relative's name was so garbled I had now idea who she was speaking about. I kept hanging up thinking it was an obscene phone call and finally yelled to stop calling me.

A few days later the neighbor called my parents again and they dealt with the problem. At the time I felt so guilty for hanging up but now I think what the hell did they think they were doing leaving a kid home alone in bed so they could play GOLF!!! It is so Beth Jarrett.

When we finally got touch tone - I told my mother "Don't the ones with the buttons in the handle - get the desk phones" - but she ignored me and I hated them.

Then when we got the two line thing (pre-call waiting - remember, with the switch?) we had to get the phones I liked anyway.

No. I've always hated talking on the phone. Still do.

[quote]my Mom sternly reminded me that if I ever scolded her again, I'd have "her shoe up my ass"!

Kitty Forman?