Be honest... do you know what that is? Do you know how to use one?

Today we were in Value Village (Same company as Savers... a thrift store) and I came across a rotary phone. I asked my children if they knew how to dial one and they said "yes". So I asked them to dial our phone number... they failed miserably (little liars is what they are, lol).

I obviously attracted some attention... a 13-14 year old saw us playing with this phone and I asked him if he knew how to use the phone. He wasn't sure and when he tried, he failed also.

Thrift stores are a sad place. I'm only 30 and there are so many items in this store that my children have not or will never used. The rotary phone, Walkmans, the cassette tape, the record (well, unless they're DJs, I guess), 8 tracks.... and whatever else (They know what VHS are as I just now threw all mine out). I mean, when I was little, I don't think there really was THAT many of common items that my parents and grandparents had used that I did not (Tomas will be sure to interject).

Technology is advancing at an amazing rate. Thrift stores are really museums for the technology of the past.

 

My parents had a rotary phone until I was at least 10.

 

rotary phones are fun to play with

and you can get/find a lot of cool stuff at thrift stores!!!

 

Heck yeah, I go to Goodwill all the time to pick up funny/random shirts. It's great!

 

My brother still has a rotary phone on the wall in his house in St louis. For a long time it was the only one they had. I hated using that thing, what a PITA!

 

LOL...I remember our first push-button phone really well. My older brother got it for his room. It was back when you would go to the AT&T or Bell store and pay some ridiculous price for the phone up front, or "rent" the phone for around $2 a month. Many people would do it for YEARS and wind up paying hundreds of dollars in rent for a basic phone.

I also remember my first cordless phone. It was big and square with a metal telescoping antenna. It had a range of maybe 60 ft and would last for about 2 hours between charges. Yeah, baby...I was hot stuff with that hi-tech wonder.

 

LOL, that's right, people rented phones! I wasn't exactly a phone purchaser or telephone customer back then... were phones really expensive back then, so much where people would actually have to rent them?

I remember our first cordless phone too. I was thinking the other day, while watching a movie, that the metal telescopic antenna they were using really dated the flick.

Yeah, the rented corded phone with the 18 feet of curly cord so you can reach the other end of the kitchen... my children will probably never have the pleasure!

Last week I informed my son that I didn't really grow up with a computer (we had some Radio Shack thing... it played games) and that even the ones I had when I was a teenager, just barely got on the internet. Prodigy, bulletin boards, the web containing like 7 websites total, lol.

 

Yep. If I remember correctly, it was some crazy price like $100 to buy it, or $2 a month to rent. That was back before the phone companies were de-regulated. You couldn't just go to a store like Wal-Mart and buy a phone back then.
I have fond memories of that first cordless phone. It fit perfectly in the thigh pocket of my parachute pants!

 

Now that's way cool!

About the rented/expensive phones.... Guess that's why the whole phone company store in the malls, with the whole showroom of phones, kind of went out of style.

 

Yeah..pretty-much. When they deregulated all of that and you could go to any store and buy any phone, every thing changed.

 

my parents worked for bell so they got their phone line at a discounted rate

 

My parents still have a rotary candle stick phone. It's mostly for show, but it works.