SOME LIFESTYLE CHANGES ARE MORE DIFFICULT THAN OTHERS
Telephone of olden days (Author photo)
We go way back, the beloved landline and I. Maybe not really as far back as the above instrument, which was actually rescued from my friend Cynthia who wanted to toss it. But I have loved my landline and it loved me back.
For my part, I listed its number on my business cards, letterhead and with countless agencies which will now have to be alerted about its demise. In return it faithfully showed me who was calling, played a pleasant little message to friends if I were out or (most often) to foes who sought money — either legitimately, for causes I support, or (most often) illegitimately.
Good old landline would also tell me, if I happened to be nearby and paying attention, exactly who was calling — giving me the option of answering before the friendly machine did. And most delightfully, it took messages from friends while almost never recording anything from the scammers, who tend not to leave their evil messages on answering machines.
It was also boldly proactive. If you left a message while I was out, it would blink at me ferociously on return until I played things back. Unlike the cellphone, which disappears messages with abandon and is still mildly bewildering after all these years, the landline saved me untold embarrassment from friends who sought to connect.
“You left a message on my cellphone?” Oh dear. “Two weeks ago?”
In short, my trusty landline has been, over the twelve years since I moved and had to change from the old trusty landline number, far more than just a relic of bygone days. But time came to hang it up.
(Another Author photo, after hanging up the phone)
AT&T finally pushed me over the edge. They’ve been trying to push friends of landlines over the edge for years by any means they can think of. Resistance has been fierce. Generally not for fleeting affections such as listed above but for truly valid reasons.
For one: not everbody in the world owns a mobile phone. I know that’s hard for anyone under 70 to imagine, but once there was life before cellphone towers. Also, cellphones can cost big bucks.
The main argument pro-landline, though, comes from people in remote areas where cellphone coverage is spotty to nonexistent. The telephone is both a friendline and a lifeline. I have friends in this category, as well as friends in cities like my San Francisco hometown, who are concerned about safety when the power is out.
“My mama,” says my friend Brian, “will shoot me if I give up my landline. When the earthquake hit? She was a hot mess until I got to my landline to assure her we were all okay.”
But apparently landline profit margins are thinner than the AT&T people prefer. They came up with a solution.
Several months ago, without so much as a heads-up — let alone an apology — my landline bill quietly rose from $60/month to something over $100. Because I have it on auto-pay, along with the confusing bills for cellphone and internet service I have had with AT&T for lo these many years, I managed not to notice the first month of astronomical charges. But not even right-brained I can overlook, for long, a bill that almost doubles without warning.
For $60/month I could gulp, but in light of the blessings above which I have long enjoyed, just pay up. A hundred simoleons? Nahh.
So off I went to the Verizon place. Josh the store manager, who was quickly called in because some little old lady was asking ridiculous questions, came up with the answers. I may be in love with Josh.
My trusty landline number will now go to a new iPhone 16e — like I needed another iPhone 16e — which the Verizon people threw in for free. It’s blue. Unlike my white phone, which I generally keep nearby and on which I actually take calls from the few who have its number, the blue phone will sit in the corner formerly occupied by the landline phone. Eventually I’ll come up with an explanatory message for it to offer. Then I’ll try to train myself to check for messages left by friends and the occasional scammer.
Meanwhile, because I may not be techonologically smart enough to unplug the old router and plug in the new without messing up my internet service, the Verizon people will send a technician over to do it. And rather than the three confusing bills AT&T somehow never let me combine into one, the Verizon people are combining all three services into one fathomable bill for me to auto-pay. Take that, AT&T.
All of the above might seem like much ado about nothing to you, but that’s because I’m older than you are.
Your messages will be welcome on the blue phone. Just please remember that it doesn’t blink at me.
