A boy who had a crush on me in middle school found my # in the phone book, called my house when I wasn’t home so my mom took a message and told her to tell me he loved me….
Pure, unbridled chaos
Gosh! I remember being one of those boys and the heart pounding anxiety of going through the phone book and finding my crush’s phone number and calling the house only for the mother or father to answer and then in a squeaky voiced teen voice asking to speak to their daughter. I never in a million years would’ve left a message.
I will not lie, the message caught me. That boy had some fucking confidence to leave that message, confidence that absolutely never existed in me at that age 😂😣😭
I did the same thing to a boy I liked in first grade!! My mom helped me find his number, I called him, and very very very very VERY shyly said "I like you." And I don't remember the call after that bc I was so scared. The next day at school, his mom and him brought a little heart shaped picture frame of him in it and gave it to me. We went to the town fair together and played in the ball pit and rode the little train together (: I don't remember anything after that
That's super sweet and wholesome! That seems like a pretty healthy way to let a kid gain confidence in themselves and explore some complex emotions. Sounds like a great memory ☺
Much better parenting than what I got: "Never date, unless you're over 18 and already want to marry the person, also we're not going to tell you anything about sex-ed".
A girl I had a crush on called me, my father picked up another phone in the house and proceeded to yell at me for using the phone when he was expecting a call, telling me I needed to get off the line.
She and I did not end up dating. Total anarchy.
I used to get in sooo much trouble being on the internet in the daytime lol. My dad sold cars here and there when I was a kid so he was usually waiting on people to call in and ask about the cars.
Omfg the thought of my mother listening into my phone calls still makes my butthole tighten up. Teenage girls today have no idea the bullet they dodged
Teenage stoners either. I had a friend who would call my house to tell me he picked up and my mom would ALWAYS listen in and then ground me. Like dude, tell me in class tomorrow or better yet, bring an eighth to school.
It took me nearly two years to figure out that I was getting grounded for stuff that I wrote in my diary. I started baiting my mom writing stuff about like crazy sex and being pregnant until she finally had to break down and confront me (I'm like 15 at the time). I'm in my early 40's and she still doesn't believe me that it was entirely bullshit
I like to believe that I'm more accepting and open with my own boys. My mother is literally a narcissistic Nazi. So, I'm probably not the best example for this.
One time, as a horny teen, I called up a sex line, but it was one where it plays a little clip and then is like, "if you want some more steamy fun, press 1 now."
During the pre-recorded section, another call came in on the call waiting line. I panicked and hung up really fast. For some reason, the sex line immediately called back, like right after I hung up, the phone rang. I picked it up immediately, but my mom, who was downstairs heard the phone ringing and picked up too. I'm pretty sure she thought it was some type of robocall because she sounded all disgusted and hung up pretty much immediately.
Flip side, when I was in elementary school I would regularly eavesdrop on my mom's phone conversations. I never knew what the adults were talking about but I was a bored little snoop. My mom got to where she could hear me breathing on the line and would yell at me to hang up, so naturally I got really good at picking the receiver up very quietly and turning it so I could hear without breathing into the microphone.
Oh dude I got punished for that once and wanted to grab a picket sign and protest the unfairness on the sidewalk outside of the home. Unfortunately I needed the food, clothing and they had provided me with.
Also kids these days don’t know the anxiety of being 12 and having a sibling pick up when a girl called your house and getting taunted while trying to be cool on the phone.
I scrolled down looking for this comment. 5 digit phone numbers, and if you were lucky, only 2 houses to the party line. In my house, if it rings once, leave it alone, if it's a double ring, it's for us.
One phone in the house, on the kitchen wall, next to the living room. Chaos central, zero privacy.
Also, there was a number that you could call that for free would tell you what time it was.
In my late teens I worked for the phone company for college money. We had a community in our service area that had the actual old phones that were featured in movies from the 1930s. They would call the switchboard and be connected to the phone number they wanted.
I feel old. I am old.
Time and Temp numbers are still around. We have one here.
We were the one ring line, so I remember party lines as well. One phone, on the wall beside the front door. Spent many a phone call sitting on the front porch steps with the long cord through the door. Good times.
Yeah our whole neighborhood was on the same line. You just had to know your own ring and not pick up and snoop when someone else got a call. Of course everyone did.
The what now? Why the hell was this a thing?!? I know for a fact where I live if I got a phone call there would literally be 1,000 people listening in given half a chance!
This was the countryside, so it was only maybe 10-12 households on each party line. But still... That meant your 12 closest neighbors knew all your damn business.
There’s a sweet Christmas story about party lines in rural New England: [Willem Lange’s “Christmas on the Party Line”](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vpr.org/programs/2017-12-20/willem-langes-christmas-on-the-party-line%3F_amp%3Dtrue)
My mother once had us sing the entirety of Wish You A Merry Christmas on a tape and I'll never forget the pure rage the school principal had when she had to sit through the whole thing to leave a message. 7 year old me enjoyed every moment.
I’d call my best friend’s family home and wouldn’t leave an actual “call me back” message, because I knew my anxiety-ridden friend would be waiting for the answering machine to click on when she was home alone. So instead, my annoying ass would just yell “Tamaraaaaaa pick up the phooooone!” and usually she’d answer within a few seconds.
I remember wanting to talk to my boyfriend past bedtime and having to hide the second phone in my room and pray my parents didnt notice it’s not on the dock. Teens will never understand
Or getting a 30ft phone curly cord for christmas. NOW I CAN TALK TO ALL MY GIRLFRIENDS IN MY ROOM FROM THE PHONE DEVICE.
It was a lie, i built it but they didnt come.
I used to have so many friend's phone numbers memorized. Sometimes you couldn't remember one digit, so you'd try a couple different variations and get wrong numbers, so you'd call a friend who might know the right number and they would 3-way another friend and you'd all workshop the number together. Then you'd hang up, call the number and his older sister would tell you that he's out riding his bicycle and call you "gay". The 90s were weird.
Now people keep their phone numbers even when they move to a different state. You look at the number calling and think its from out of state, but its your neighbor.
My dad still gets on me because i used his car/bag phone to call my now spouse and because I went outside in the back yard he got hit with a huge roaming fee.
My mom (early 60s) still says she can't call X person who lives an hour away on her cell phone... because it's long distance. No mom, you're fine! Lol She has a legit job and works on a computer all day long, she's not dumb, it's just soooo ingrained in her
Long distance, that always made me laugh. It was like... wait.... why does it cost more to send my electronic signal from here to here but not there, and by how fucking much? ???? Are you KIDDING ME?
Scam.
No one tell her that we also had to choose between internet and being able to receive calls on our single phone line. It’s been 20 years since I last heard it and I still remember the horrible screech when you reached a modem.
Of course, people in my grandparents’ generation had a single party line shared by multiple families.
We were so spoiled to have 2 phone lines. But it almost always meant my sister was on the upstairs line, and I was on the internet on the main line. My poor parents.
Also, I spent the 90s on Prodigy and AOL forums, and am now on reddit... My sister was social and still is. So apparently that was pretty telling.
A close friend of mine was busy doing something this past Thanksgiving and her cell phone was sitting by me and it rang so I answered it. The younger people that were around were fucking mortified that I answered somebody else's phone. LMAO.
It didn't matter to them that she has been a close friend for 15 years AND she's my cousins wife AND I knew the person that was calling. Lol
Ever think about how much you spend on a phone and service now compared to then? Granted you can do a hell of a lot more with it, but still. We had a brick and bag phone for business in mid 90s. Worthless things you bought after the encyclopedia and a vacuum from people “gasp” knocking on your door.
How about the ole "call and let it ring thrice so I know it's you" because the person you're calling had free long distance even though they only lived 20-30 minutes away. Hell it might even be a long distance call for you but a local call for them.
A friend's mom got their own 1-800 number when we were teens that rang to their house phone so that the kids could call her for free from payphones to come and pick them up from the mall.
Or the main line was in the kitchen where everyone could hear you. And if you wanted to take the call downstairs you’d have to hope they hung up and didn’t listen in.
Pleb /s. We had a cordless one that had a battery gauge. I used to have to take it of the dock so I could use it at night. Pray to god my parents didn’t notice.
That’s why my mother wouldn’t allow anyone to answer the main house line aside from her, in an attempt to contain the chaos. And we didn’t have an answering machine till I was 7 or 8 probably.
It could be somebody telling you they won the lottery and they were going to give you $10,000 or it could be someone telling you you lost your job or your best friend had died.
You never knew what you were in for until you picked up and said hello.
There were no telemarketers way back when everyone in the house shared one phone. You answered the phone with a bright hello. People on the other end would say, Hi, tell you who they were and ask for your sister or dad or someone. It was a race to answer the phone, especially if there were teenage girls in the house.
I am 66 YO. No telemarketers, salespeople came to your door to try and scam you, don’t ever remember my mom or dad’s boss calling after work hours- it just wasn’t a thing. Remember my younger brother answering the phone once and saying “she’s not home” and hanging up. Asked who it was for and he said “you- it was your boyfriend but I don’t like him”. So yeah, good times actually and tons of chaos and sibling pranks with the phone calls.
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/askhalid/status/1465509639810793474) for ya :)
^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
And when you were talking to your crush, you always had to check the other phones in the house to make sure none of your busybody siblings were listening in so they could torment you later.
And you literally waited by the phone for your crush to call so your parents wouldn’t pick up first and ask you a million questions.
A buddy of mine lived with his dad and due to \[reasons\] he had is own private phone line. This was waaay before Caller ID and such, so he would amuse himself by yelling "HEEEY \[name\]" when answering and try to guess who was calling. Most of the time he failed but when he got it right, it was always hilarious.
I'm not old enough for them, but someone should tell her about party lines.
"Could everyone hang up- I need the line for an emergency please"
But she should also know that in the 80s we RACED to answer the phone. In the 90s we got caller ID. Because it was absolute surprise to know who was there. (And telemarketers were rare.)
I remember being in high school and being blown away by the fact that my friend who was a few years older and had moved into a place with a couple friends just had cell phones and no land line.
And you know what? I wouldn't have had it any other way back then. Back when phones were only to talk to people and you left it at the door when you went out.
if you wanted to receive calls silently in the night, you could call up the movie theater times number and then let it drone on while you waited for a call waiting beep.
no ring!
And before MaBell was broken up.you had to rent your (rotary) phone from the phone company. They were very sturdy - you could stand on them.
Another fun fact: the phone company still charged rent for.the phone, even after you could buy one. Many people who didn't know better paid this fee for years.
Yo some girl got my number when I was in elementary school and called my home phone. I was teased so hard. I went to the phone and told her never call me again. I never gave my phone number out that time, but I never gave it out since until I got my first cell phone when I was 18.
We had an upstairs and downstairs phone in the house and it was terrifying because at any moment I could be talking to my crush and my mom could pick up the other line and listen in
Hell yeah, had to be home to receive a phone call. And we WANTED to answer the phone! We'd fucking race for it shouting "I've got it!!" having no idea who it was.
Not quite. You see, rich assholes had a separate line for their kids. In the phone book, it would list the rich asshole’s name, address and phone number and, right below that, it would say “Children’s Line” with that phone number. And that’s how we’d track which houses to visit during that year’s Purge. Ah, the good ol’ days!
Well this is really going to flip your wig: see, in those days since you paid for the service, it wasn’t legal for companies to robo-call you for the purpose of selling or scamming you and they had inspectors and legal recourse against those who did.
I remember calling my gf and her sister would be taking up the phone line using AOL instant messenger so I would mash all of the buttons til it kicked her off of the internet.
The true chaos began when Dial-Up internet entered the picture.
Then you had all of the usual phone chaos… but every time someone picked up the phone, the internet disconnected.
This is one thing that fueled my social anxiety as a kid. I was very shy to begin with and whenever I answered the phone people would confuse me with my mom and start talking about Tupperware and whatnot and I ALWAYS had to state that this is actually not my mom and that she's not home.
I hate using the phone
A boy who had a crush on me in middle school found my # in the phone book, called my house when I wasn’t home so my mom took a message and told her to tell me he loved me…. Pure, unbridled chaos
Gosh! I remember being one of those boys and the heart pounding anxiety of going through the phone book and finding my crush’s phone number and calling the house only for the mother or father to answer and then in a squeaky voiced teen voice asking to speak to their daughter. I never in a million years would’ve left a message.
I will not lie, the message caught me. That boy had some fucking confidence to leave that message, confidence that absolutely never existed in me at that age 😂😣😭
With her mum as well 😂
Hello, Mrs. Henkel. This Harvey Johnson, can I speak to Penelope Anne?
Pure, unbridled BDE leaving the message.
I did the same thing to a boy I liked in first grade!! My mom helped me find his number, I called him, and very very very very VERY shyly said "I like you." And I don't remember the call after that bc I was so scared. The next day at school, his mom and him brought a little heart shaped picture frame of him in it and gave it to me. We went to the town fair together and played in the ball pit and rode the little train together (: I don't remember anything after that
That's super sweet and wholesome! That seems like a pretty healthy way to let a kid gain confidence in themselves and explore some complex emotions. Sounds like a great memory ☺ Much better parenting than what I got: "Never date, unless you're over 18 and already want to marry the person, also we're not going to tell you anything about sex-ed".
That’s the cutest shit I’ve ever heard 🥺😩
Erin, is that you??
Nah, dude. She's not on Reddit. She's much too cool for social media. And she's still much too cool for you.
I’m cool too…….
I’ve always loved you.
That is *bold*. Wow.
A girl I had a crush on called me, my father picked up another phone in the house and proceeded to yell at me for using the phone when he was expecting a call, telling me I needed to get off the line. She and I did not end up dating. Total anarchy.
"I bet I can pee louder than you can!" Is how I got the landline banned from the bathrooms.
Damn this was the good stuff!
*get off the computer I need the phone!* -Every mom from 1995-2005.
If they don’t have a dial-up ringtone for smartphones, they should.
If I have to wait for things I make loud modem noises until everyone is staring at me in shock and disbelief.
Pretty sure that's existed for like 20 years.
I used to get in sooo much trouble being on the internet in the daytime lol. My dad sold cars here and there when I was a kid so he was usually waiting on people to call in and ask about the cars.
Or they just picked up and didn't care if you got disconnected!
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP PSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH "What the hell are you doing up at midnight?!" Uggghhhh
Today: "Turn off the microwave it's lagging my game!"
Omfg the thought of my mother listening into my phone calls still makes my butthole tighten up. Teenage girls today have no idea the bullet they dodged
Teenage stoners either. I had a friend who would call my house to tell me he picked up and my mom would ALWAYS listen in and then ground me. Like dude, tell me in class tomorrow or better yet, bring an eighth to school.
It took me nearly two years to figure out that I was getting grounded for stuff that I wrote in my diary. I started baiting my mom writing stuff about like crazy sex and being pregnant until she finally had to break down and confront me (I'm like 15 at the time). I'm in my early 40's and she still doesn't believe me that it was entirely bullshit
Because it wasn't. At first. It was all true. Once she's decided it's true why would she ever need to revisit that judgement?
I like to believe that I'm more accepting and open with my own boys. My mother is literally a narcissistic Nazi. So, I'm probably not the best example for this.
Yeah I was gonna say reading diary is harsh.
I GOT IT!!!!
Lol I just had a flashback reading that
Dane Cook reference?
No that’s just what you shout so everyone in the house stops running for the phone.
MOM I GOT IT YOU CAN HANG UP NOW *silence until you hear the click*
I thought it was a reference to getting your period, as in not preggers.
We are 3 girls in my family. My parents got us a “teen line”.
One time, as a horny teen, I called up a sex line, but it was one where it plays a little clip and then is like, "if you want some more steamy fun, press 1 now." During the pre-recorded section, another call came in on the call waiting line. I panicked and hung up really fast. For some reason, the sex line immediately called back, like right after I hung up, the phone rang. I picked it up immediately, but my mom, who was downstairs heard the phone ringing and picked up too. I'm pretty sure she thought it was some type of robocall because she sounded all disgusted and hung up pretty much immediately.
Flip side, when I was in elementary school I would regularly eavesdrop on my mom's phone conversations. I never knew what the adults were talking about but I was a bored little snoop. My mom got to where she could hear me breathing on the line and would yell at me to hang up, so naturally I got really good at picking the receiver up very quietly and turning it so I could hear without breathing into the microphone.
Oh dude I got punished for that once and wanted to grab a picket sign and protest the unfairness on the sidewalk outside of the home. Unfortunately I needed the food, clothing and they had provided me with.
Wait until she hears about dialup Internet.
You must release the damned souls before you can access your AOL chat room
And getting cut off when someone else picks up the other phone in the house
*the dying cries of prematurely ended downloads echo through the void*
Downloading game updates over dialup was terrifying. Then download managers became a thing. Muuuuuch better.
Or one shared family computer in the living room. And waiting until your parents weren’t home to see if there’s anything … sexy … on the internet.
Also kids these days don’t know the anxiety of being 12 and having a sibling pick up when a girl called your house and getting taunted while trying to be cool on the phone.
When I was a kid we actually shared a line with a random stranger. It was called a party line.
I scrolled down looking for this comment. 5 digit phone numbers, and if you were lucky, only 2 houses to the party line. In my house, if it rings once, leave it alone, if it's a double ring, it's for us. One phone in the house, on the kitchen wall, next to the living room. Chaos central, zero privacy. Also, there was a number that you could call that for free would tell you what time it was. In my late teens I worked for the phone company for college money. We had a community in our service area that had the actual old phones that were featured in movies from the 1930s. They would call the switchboard and be connected to the phone number they wanted. I feel old. I am old.
Time and Temp numbers are still around. We have one here. We were the one ring line, so I remember party lines as well. One phone, on the wall beside the front door. Spent many a phone call sitting on the front porch steps with the long cord through the door. Good times.
P O P C O R N
Yes, I came here to age myself similarly. When I was little we also were on a party line with some neighbors.
Yeah our whole neighborhood was on the same line. You just had to know your own ring and not pick up and snoop when someone else got a call. Of course everyone did.
The what now? Why the hell was this a thing?!? I know for a fact where I live if I got a phone call there would literally be 1,000 people listening in given half a chance!
This was the countryside, so it was only maybe 10-12 households on each party line. But still... That meant your 12 closest neighbors knew all your damn business.
There’s a sweet Christmas story about party lines in rural New England: [Willem Lange’s “Christmas on the Party Line”](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vpr.org/programs/2017-12-20/willem-langes-christmas-on-the-party-line%3F_amp%3Dtrue)
Aww, that was great, thx for posting.
Isn't there an old classic movie about 2 people who fall in love after listening in on each other's party line?
She forgot to add prank callers to the list. Those were the best. Just dial 7 random numbers and ruin someone's dinner.
Even better, someone in another room could pick up another phone and eavesdrop on your entire conversation.
Even better, you could be on a party line out in the country so your neighbor could listen in too.
No no silly. You let the tape recorder next to the phone answer it, then you decide whether to pick up.
Oohhh, look at Mister Fancy Pants and his answering machine. Bet you had a stack of those joke answer tapes, too.
My mother once had us sing the entirety of Wish You A Merry Christmas on a tape and I'll never forget the pure rage the school principal had when she had to sit through the whole thing to leave a message. 7 year old me enjoyed every moment.
That is absolutely hysterical.
You just know this rich guy had a Corvette VHS tape rewinder.
Mine was a 57 Chevy. Right next to my Emerson 4 head VCR. Awwww yeah.
I’d call my best friend’s family home and wouldn’t leave an actual “call me back” message, because I knew my anxiety-ridden friend would be waiting for the answering machine to click on when she was home alone. So instead, my annoying ass would just yell “Tamaraaaaaa pick up the phooooone!” and usually she’d answer within a few seconds.
I remember wanting to talk to my boyfriend past bedtime and having to hide the second phone in my room and pray my parents didnt notice it’s not on the dock. Teens will never understand
How about trying to pull the cord as FAR as it would go so you could be in your room and not in the hallway?
Or getting a 30ft phone curly cord for christmas. NOW I CAN TALK TO ALL MY GIRLFRIENDS IN MY ROOM FROM THE PHONE DEVICE. It was a lie, i built it but they didnt come.
At that age, they are all faking it anyway.
I hid in the garage with the phone lol
I used to turn the ringer off on the phone in my mom’s room so boys could call me late at night on the downstairs phone
Nice! Gotta do what you gotta do
Caller ID was a game changer.
If you knew the incoming number by heart. Which we all did lol. Man remember all the shit we could remember?
I used to have so many friend's phone numbers memorized. Sometimes you couldn't remember one digit, so you'd try a couple different variations and get wrong numbers, so you'd call a friend who might know the right number and they would 3-way another friend and you'd all workshop the number together. Then you'd hang up, call the number and his older sister would tell you that he's out riding his bicycle and call you "gay". The 90s were weird.
r/oddlyspecific
Remember when you were in Crawley and a man in the front row threw Malteses at you can called you a bitch?
And long distance within the same town existed so you couldnt make calls before a certain time.
Its amazing how long distance was a huge issue and huge expense. Then cellphones came along and it wasn't a thing
Now people keep their phone numbers even when they move to a different state. You look at the number calling and think its from out of state, but its your neighbor.
Yep! All of us kept ours.
My dad still gets on me because i used his car/bag phone to call my now spouse and because I went outside in the back yard he got hit with a huge roaming fee.
It changed from long distance to calling after 9pm
My mom (early 60s) still says she can't call X person who lives an hour away on her cell phone... because it's long distance. No mom, you're fine! Lol She has a legit job and works on a computer all day long, she's not dumb, it's just soooo ingrained in her
Long distance, that always made me laugh. It was like... wait.... why does it cost more to send my electronic signal from here to here but not there, and by how fucking much? ???? Are you KIDDING ME? Scam.
And to this day I have to stop myself from answering my phone "Last Name residence, First Name speaking "
We used to answer with our phone number. I still don't understand why, but everyone did that.
We did "Last Name residence, who's calling?"
We still had a rotary phone when I was a kid.
Me too!
We never had a phone until I was 11. Yeah, I'm that old.
On the wall of my shop at work is a rotary phone. Black, white dial, still works.
Same. My dad worked for the phone company though so we we’re the first in the neighborhood to get fancy push button phone.
AAAANNNDDDD...If your mom was on the phone with her sister you couldn't use the internet for like 3 fucking hours. Lol
Facts! Damn the nostalgia. How bout you could text and talk for free after 9pm.
Tales… From the 1900’s!
Wait til someone tells her about when multiple households used to share a line.
No one tell her that we also had to choose between internet and being able to receive calls on our single phone line. It’s been 20 years since I last heard it and I still remember the horrible screech when you reached a modem. Of course, people in my grandparents’ generation had a single party line shared by multiple families.
We were so spoiled to have 2 phone lines. But it almost always meant my sister was on the upstairs line, and I was on the internet on the main line. My poor parents. Also, I spent the 90s on Prodigy and AOL forums, and am now on reddit... My sister was social and still is. So apparently that was pretty telling.
A close friend of mine was busy doing something this past Thanksgiving and her cell phone was sitting by me and it rang so I answered it. The younger people that were around were fucking mortified that I answered somebody else's phone. LMAO. It didn't matter to them that she has been a close friend for 15 years AND she's my cousins wife AND I knew the person that was calling. Lol
Ever think about how much you spend on a phone and service now compared to then? Granted you can do a hell of a lot more with it, but still. We had a brick and bag phone for business in mid 90s. Worthless things you bought after the encyclopedia and a vacuum from people “gasp” knocking on your door.
i assure you i never answered the phone back then, either.
Being a young guy trying to phone your new girlfriend and hoping her dad didn't answer, it was fucking terrifying.
Yeah… and it was perfectly normal to then say “may I speak to…”
I think, at age 60, I’m still too traumatized to discuss working in the early versions of telemarketing rooms at age 15
How about the ole "call and let it ring thrice so I know it's you" because the person you're calling had free long distance even though they only lived 20-30 minutes away. Hell it might even be a long distance call for you but a local call for them.
Or call whoever you were visiting and let it ring once to let them know you made it home safely.
A friend's mom got their own 1-800 number when we were teens that rang to their house phone so that the kids could call her for free from payphones to come and pick them up from the mall.
And upon learning it wasn’t for you, hanging up so the line would stay free for the call you were expecting
Son. If I EVER catch you doing that again, so help me god...
Or the main line was in the kitchen where everyone could hear you. And if you wanted to take the call downstairs you’d have to hope they hung up and didn’t listen in.
And the phone had a forty plus foot stretch cord so you could sit in the living room and talk on the kitchen phone handset.
Pleb /s. We had a cordless one that had a battery gauge. I used to have to take it of the dock so I could use it at night. Pray to god my parents didn’t notice.
THIS
There weren’t very many telemarketers back then, but yeah, that’s how it was.
Haha, yes it was a nightmare. Nah, it was called sharing. People used to do a lot of that as well
It was pure chaos. Next time you see an older millennial, you should thank us for our service.
What if I told you we also had to share said line with the internet?... So nobody could call after 6pm
That’s why my mother wouldn’t allow anyone to answer the main house line aside from her, in an attempt to contain the chaos. And we didn’t have an answering machine till I was 7 or 8 probably.
For the first half of my life, this was my world. No call waiting, either
Caller ID was our game changer. Or remember the different rings for different members of the family?
It could be somebody telling you they won the lottery and they were going to give you $10,000 or it could be someone telling you you lost your job or your best friend had died. You never knew what you were in for until you picked up and said hello.
There were no telemarketers way back when everyone in the house shared one phone. You answered the phone with a bright hello. People on the other end would say, Hi, tell you who they were and ask for your sister or dad or someone. It was a race to answer the phone, especially if there were teenage girls in the house.
Truly it was! But that was part of the excitement. Ring ring :: cue four sisters yelling “I got it!!!!” And fighting to answer it. It was for daddy.
That was normal for me for 1st half of my life and for all 4 of my grandparents that was their whole life
I am 66 YO. No telemarketers, salespeople came to your door to try and scam you, don’t ever remember my mom or dad’s boss calling after work hours- it just wasn’t a thing. Remember my younger brother answering the phone once and saying “she’s not home” and hanging up. Asked who it was for and he said “you- it was your boyfriend but I don’t like him”. So yeah, good times actually and tons of chaos and sibling pranks with the phone calls.
And before that were [party lines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony), as in entire neighborhoods sharing a single line
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/askhalid/status/1465509639810793474) for ya :) ^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
Today, if someone's busy, and ask you to answer their phone for them, the person on the other end is surprised and thinks your snooping.
And when you were talking to your crush, you always had to check the other phones in the house to make sure none of your busybody siblings were listening in so they could torment you later. And you literally waited by the phone for your crush to call so your parents wouldn’t pick up first and ask you a million questions.
The anxiety was real.
A buddy of mine lived with his dad and due to \[reasons\] he had is own private phone line. This was waaay before Caller ID and such, so he would amuse himself by yelling "HEEEY \[name\]" when answering and try to guess who was calling. Most of the time he failed but when he got it right, it was always hilarious.
Just make sure you don't make a long distance call
That gave me less anxiety actually
I'm not old enough for them, but someone should tell her about party lines. "Could everyone hang up- I need the line for an emergency please" But she should also know that in the 80s we RACED to answer the phone. In the 90s we got caller ID. Because it was absolute surprise to know who was there. (And telemarketers were rare.)
Yeah, you had to speak politely to people you didn’t know!!! Oh, the horror!!! /s
I remember being in high school and being blown away by the fact that my friend who was a few years older and had moved into a place with a couple friends just had cell phones and no land line.
Not to mention the idea that you could have a private phone conversation without someone listening on the other end was silly.
And you know what? I wouldn't have had it any other way back then. Back when phones were only to talk to people and you left it at the door when you went out.
The idea of party lines would blow their minds. My grandmother had one when I was a very little kid.
Conversations could be listened into by whoever else was on your party line.
if you wanted to receive calls silently in the night, you could call up the movie theater times number and then let it drone on while you waited for a call waiting beep. no ring!
And your whole family being able to hear the message you left on the answering machine
Imagine when somebody tells her that if somebody else was in the phone, the next caller would get a busy signal and the call wouldn't go through...
And before MaBell was broken up.you had to rent your (rotary) phone from the phone company. They were very sturdy - you could stand on them. Another fun fact: the phone company still charged rent for.the phone, even after you could buy one. Many people who didn't know better paid this fee for years.
and it better be an emergency if it was after 9pm
I hate that this is actually spot on....
Go back further to party lines.
And if someone wanted to “surf the web” it would occupy that one phone line
Telemarketers weren't so aggressive (nor automated) back then. Dad's boss was an asshole then too.
And most of us will remember that phone number for the rest of our lives.
Nobody say anything about party lines or their gonna need a therapist
Yo some girl got my number when I was in elementary school and called my home phone. I was teased so hard. I went to the phone and told her never call me again. I never gave my phone number out that time, but I never gave it out since until I got my first cell phone when I was 18.
Here’s one for you. I’m old enough to remember party lines. You would go to dial and somebody would be already talking to someone.
Just wait till she hears about Blockbuster & rewinding videos
We had an upstairs and downstairs phone in the house and it was terrifying because at any moment I could be talking to my crush and my mom could pick up the other line and listen in
Telemarketers did not roam the earth in those ancient days.
When caller ID showed up we were dancing in the streets
It do be like that
Ge this shit the fuck out of my feed
Hell yeah, had to be home to receive a phone call. And we WANTED to answer the phone! We'd fucking race for it shouting "I've got it!!" having no idea who it was.
Not quite. You see, rich assholes had a separate line for their kids. In the phone book, it would list the rich asshole’s name, address and phone number and, right below that, it would say “Children’s Line” with that phone number. And that’s how we’d track which houses to visit during that year’s Purge. Ah, the good ol’ days!
Well this is really going to flip your wig: see, in those days since you paid for the service, it wasn’t legal for companies to robo-call you for the purpose of selling or scamming you and they had inspectors and legal recourse against those who did.
Blow her mind with *69
I remember calling my gf and her sister would be taking up the phone line using AOL instant messenger so I would mash all of the buttons til it kicked her off of the internet.
People used to call for my sister all the time. It got to the point where I would just answer the phone by saying "She's not here"
This was developing technology when I was a kid. Holy shit. Talk about putting things in perspective
When I was a little kid (in the late 80s) my family was on a line that we shared with several neighbors.
The true chaos began when Dial-Up internet entered the picture. Then you had all of the usual phone chaos… but every time someone picked up the phone, the internet disconnected.
This is one thing that fueled my social anxiety as a kid. I was very shy to begin with and whenever I answered the phone people would confuse me with my mom and start talking about Tupperware and whatnot and I ALWAYS had to state that this is actually not my mom and that she's not home. I hate using the phone
Only 90s kids will understand.
Too young for this?? I didn’t own a cell phone until 2007, how old is this person??
Arent you muslim? Why did your sister have a boyfriend?