Fixing To Give Up The Phone

[Old Corp]

No landline for ~10 years or so. Don't miss it.
Appreciate the convenience of short text messages with friends that wanna go shooting, fishing, ride to hunt club, etc. I'm not a big phone talker.

If cells go down, and they did during Hurricane Florence last year, I have a base station VHF marine radio and a US Coast Guard station less than 10 miles away, monitoring 24/7. Also the same VHF in my truck.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Pay Phones?
Dimes?
Say what?
That sounds like long ago and far away!
I start a lot of my stories-
It was in a Distant Kingdom, Long Ago and Far Away.

 

[Skeet 028]

Only reason I have a landline is because I have a pacemaker..it talks to a box on the desk..the box talks to a receiver somewhere and once a month the cardiac docs office calls to let me know it is ok and the meds I take for A Fib are working. The only reason I have the Pacemaker is because my heart rate rns35-40 without it usually. If I was tech savvy 'nuff I am sure there is an "app" that can do the same thing. and we are remote enough that cell service at home is a bit iffy.

 

[JohnZMI]

My daughter communicates with her kids (my grandkids and great-grandkids) via smartphones and texting [they all live 4-5 states away from us]; she and my wife get along great, and text regularly. The wife and I have smartphones, but only a very close circle of friends and family have our numbers, and mine hardly ever rings unless it's my wife (she had to teach me how to text).

We have a plan with Consumer Cellular that's about $50 a month for everything (voice and data), and I doubt if either of us uses 10% of the phones' capabilities - we'd have to hire a 10-year-old to learn how.

 

[Bumpus13]

I bought my first cell phone, a Nokia 5110 (had to look the model # up just now) back in '98

Haven't been without one since. Tethered to a land line? Why? If I need to talk to you, I've got my cell phone. If I'm not home, it does me zero good anyway.

Leave the house w/o my phone? Might as well leave w/o my wallet or pants. LOL

I actually have a landline, but it goes completely unused. I only have it because it came in the package w/ my cable & internet service. Somewhere in a box in either the back of a closet or the basement is an old phone/answering machine combo that I last used back in college. It still works, or at least did a couple decades ago when it went in the box. Highly doubt it ever sees the light of day again.

When Apple came out with the iPhone, I bought one. I upgrade every so often ... from the original iPhone, to the iPhone4 (which disappeared somewhere after one VERY foggy night on Fremont St. in Vegas) to the iPhone4s a week later when I got back home, to finally the iPhoneXs last fall.

They're pricy, but awesome! Hell, I don't even have a PC at home anymore because I carry my computer in my pocket with me ... I'm typing this on it right now. The sole reason I even have WiFi is because occasionally I need to use my work laptop from home.

I have the world at my fingertips, and I sometimes wonder what we did in the before-times.

 

[shouldazagged]

Hate to say it, but I've only got a sort of old fashion flip phone. No fancy extras, it calls and it receives and it's small and fits in my front pocket. Am I tethered? Maybe, sortof...Because....I live alone and I don't think my little dog could call 911 for me, if "I'VE FALLEN, AND I CAN'T GET UP"...If I should happen to have to go to the hosp, I don't think my land line would stretch to my room to call my kids, but a cell phone would.

Out back of my place and I happen to fall, no one would find me until they see the buzzards circling or I start to smell really ripe.

But as a old codger, it's almost a necessity to have any more.

WuzzFuzz

Same style phone, same reasons, except the buzzards.