To Corded Phones With Rotary Dials

I can still feel  the way my fingers bumps into the little metal stop as I dial the numbers. Given all that effort, it was a good thing we only had to dial seven numbers, not 10. The phone made a swoop sound and then click-click-clicked back into place.

Dhscommtech at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

In the winter, before school, I would call Time & Temp for the most up-to-date information, if the morning radio show hadn’t gotten to it yet. I could use the kitchen phone for this, stretch the cord all the way into the living room while I put on my shoes. For this, I didn’t need privacy.

The private phones were in the front hall and my parent’s room. The front hall phone, big heavy black desk model, could be dragged into the bathroom or my sister’s room if she wasn’t home. I could call Kathy and analyze in detail the day’s interactions with our crushes. Once, he passed her a note. She whispers to me what is says. I whisper back, “Lucky.”

“Limit your call to 5 minutes please!” Mom calls from the other side of the door.

No call waiting. No voice mail. No answering machines. If someone called, it was just a busy signal. Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.

We didn’t know to be frustrated, the way kids now would be. We’d nag each other to get off the phone because we were waiting for a call, but it was universally accepted that a call wouldn’t always go through and the caller had to have a certain amount of persistence. We would rely on each other to take messages, write down names and phone numbers. We had to trust each other to do that.

But the best part was listening in. I hear my brother is on the phone and I casually walk to front hall. I pick up the receiver just barely so that I can slip my finger under and press down the button. I raise the earpiece to my ear and hold my breath. Slowly, slowly I lift my finger so that they don’t hear the telltale “click.” He’s talking about a math test. Nothing clandestine. Still, he doesn’t know I’m there and every word is captivating. Say more about algebra. Say something about the game on Saturday. The thrill isn’t in that I care what you’re saying, but that I can hear you at all.