I was out vagabonding and came across on old phone booth. It took me back in time.
Dial zero.
“Hello this is the operator.”
“Operator, I’d like to make a collect call.”
“The number please.” (Give her a girls phone number who lives in LA.)
“I have a collect call from Mike Huggins will you accept the charge?” She laughs and says, “Of course I will.” It was 1973. I lost her number and I’ve forgotten her name. Pam, Dana, Mia, but I can still see her face, remember her voice. We all hung out on Friday and Saturday nights in a skating rink in southern California. We’d use the phone booths to call each other when we had serious 13-year-old shit to talk about. It only cost a dime. That same call today will cost a parent around $75.00 a month because little Johnny has to have his own smart phone. It’s safer in case there’s an emergency. And if the parent calls little Johnny and he doesn’t answer because his lithium battery went dead start the execessive worrying and call 911. Probably kidnapped.
My wife recently received a free coffee pot off a buy nothing website. Of course, it wouldn’t work. It was the exact machine that was in our room on our recent trip to the ocean. That one didn’t work either. We got into a discussion on this contraption, and I told her I’d get some tools and rip the broken dripper apart. I decided to Google it first. I typed in the first two letters and then Google finished the rest—Repairing a Keurig B80. What a Google. I did as Google instructed, tearing it apart. I put it back together and it still wouldn’t work. I called around and found a family member who has one and I explained the situation. She told me to slam the lid a few times. Works perfectly now.
Standing there staring at the phone booth I couldn’t help but wonder if it all went wrong with the replacement of the outdoor phone booth. The infiltration into our lives. The loose wires not connected to anything representing the democrats, republicans, law enforcement and our judicial system.
I can hear you.
I was visiting my dad at the nursing home when one of the nurses wheeled up a woman and told me it was her 104th birthday. I pulled out my iPhone, took a picture of her and told her I could send it around the world. "I remember the first automobile." She said thus widening the generation gap even more. Must have been nice to live when she did.
And if you got separated from your friends you would call the same mom and say, “ if so & so calls you, tell them I’m at a certain place” My mom had a chalkboard by the home rotary dial phone; to keep track of what to say when friends would call. 🤪