Landline gone
Oct. 7th, 2017 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soniaI did quit my landline. Yesterday I gathered up the cordless phones, and the phone cable festooned through the house for the corded phone and fax (used to be for DSL), and the surprising amount of cable and connectors squirreled away. I piled it all on the dining room table before people came over for dancing.
Some of it was scooped up by a dancer who lives with her dad who still has a landline, and I took the rest down to FreeGeek today. I also pulled down the speaker wire that the previous owners festooned all about when they wired the house for sound. Sadly I did that after the FreeGeek run, so I'll have to go back down there sometime to get rid of the wire. I like the spaces where all the cables and phones used to be.
It feels surprisingly emotional to have the house disconnected. I keep thinking of my first summer internship up in Piscataway NJ back in 1987, in the compact 2 bedroom apartment four of us young women were sharing. We bought a $20 phone at the mall, touch tone, but with buttons around a circle like a dial. We were so giddy when we called the phone company to hook it up that the operator hung up on us. We managed a little more decorum on the second call, and successfully established phone service. It seemed miraculous that we could do that on our own, just for the summer, for an affordable amount of money.
I also think of younger-me when I just moved into this house in 2005, carefully stringing cable on top of doorways. I was proud of making that all work.
I had the phone number I just gave up the longest I've had any number, 12.5 years, since this is the longest I've lived anywhere. Not that many people used the house number anyway. Real calls were vastly outnumbered by surveys, credit card scams, and "Your Windows machine has an error."
Landlines were *important*. I'm happy with my decision, and at the same time I'm conscious of stepping away from a whole lot of history.
Some of it was scooped up by a dancer who lives with her dad who still has a landline, and I took the rest down to FreeGeek today. I also pulled down the speaker wire that the previous owners festooned all about when they wired the house for sound. Sadly I did that after the FreeGeek run, so I'll have to go back down there sometime to get rid of the wire. I like the spaces where all the cables and phones used to be.
It feels surprisingly emotional to have the house disconnected. I keep thinking of my first summer internship up in Piscataway NJ back in 1987, in the compact 2 bedroom apartment four of us young women were sharing. We bought a $20 phone at the mall, touch tone, but with buttons around a circle like a dial. We were so giddy when we called the phone company to hook it up that the operator hung up on us. We managed a little more decorum on the second call, and successfully established phone service. It seemed miraculous that we could do that on our own, just for the summer, for an affordable amount of money.
I also think of younger-me when I just moved into this house in 2005, carefully stringing cable on top of doorways. I was proud of making that all work.
I had the phone number I just gave up the longest I've had any number, 12.5 years, since this is the longest I've lived anywhere. Not that many people used the house number anyway. Real calls were vastly outnumbered by surveys, credit card scams, and "Your Windows machine has an error."
Landlines were *important*. I'm happy with my decision, and at the same time I'm conscious of stepping away from a whole lot of history.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-09 11:49 pm (UTC)May you find delightful peace without the robocalls.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-10 01:35 am (UTC)Right now it's more the visual space than the auditory space that I'm noticing. Also that I keep grabbing for the phone that was on the shelf above my desk to make logistical phone calls. I wonder how long it will take that habit to fade.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-10 11:16 am (UTC)That piece of furniture we got almost 30 yrs ago -- where we put the bills & office supplies & there's room to hide ugly phone books underneath -- still stands against the wall, bereft of its phone.
Cultural change is hard.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-10 05:51 pm (UTC)I'm feeling this as a surrender. Can't quite articulate why.
I got off the phone book lists a while ago. Here there are several companies that like to drop off their tomes, because they sell advertising in there.