The other day something reminded me of my days in high school and the lack of communication we had back then. We didn't have cell phones, but we weren't so out of touch. The less-important things just didn't get communicated until you got home. Do we communicate too much garbage these days just because we can? I fear that's a topic for another blog post though.
When I was young, I did have a way to call home: I could use a pay phone. I usually had some change on me. Initially, I believe pay phones were based on dimes and even took nickles, but by the time I was in high school, it was only quarters.
I didn't have to call home much, but if I did, and if I found myself without any change, all I had to do was use the calling card associated with our home phone line. It was fairly easy if I'm remembering correctly, you just needed to know your home phone number and then some additional digits on the end that represented the PIN.
I believe when I started using this card I would have to talk to an operator and get her to put the call through, but later on I found out the AT&T number you could call to place calling card calls directly. Then I could do the whole transaction myself from any payphone, without any money whatsoever.
As I got older and went to college and then got a job, I found myself in hotel rooms at night on business trips. This was still in the pre-cell phone era so you had to make your safe arrival call from that very expensive-to-use hotel phone. That is unless you had an eight-hundred number to call and you could bypass the per-minute, sky-high rates simply by calling a toll-free number and routing the charges to your much more reasonable calling card.
It was during this time that I had my own home phone number and my own calling card associated with that number. I used that calling card all around the world as I traveled for work. As long as I looked up in advance how to call AT&T from whatever location I would be visiting, I could use the trusty calling card number and the charges would show up on my home line phone bill the next month. Back then, before I carried around a smart phone in my pocket and could communicate any time via text, email, phone, social media, pictures, videos, etc., it was the epitome of convenience.
The pay phone is where it all started for me. When I was young they were here and there but not everywhere. I believe the peak of pay phone usage was right in the middle of some of my most busy years of business travel. I remember every year I would see more and more banks of phones being added to the various airport terminals I frequented. But then, just as they had grown in banks and rows, the cell phone took over and those heavy metal, sleekly styled phones started being used as locations for people to sit at to work on their laptops, or find a quiet place to talk on their personal cell phone while playing with the pay phone's handset cord.
Eventually, I saw the banks being dismantled and seats of dubious comfort being installed in their place, where older, less comfortable seats had resided in years before.
It's rare now that I see a pay phone, although I'm sure they still exist. At minimum, they still exist in the movies because people always need a pay phone for some reason or other. I haven't thought about my credit card calling card in so long, I don't even know if it's something the phone companies offer any more. Did pre-paid phone cards replace those too?
The Big Boy Update: Mad about mangoes. He's talked about mangoes for a good while. I wasn't sure he'd ever had any because they don't show up on the list of snack foods to bring in to school, but he knew what one was and he wanted one. I got a few at the store a while back and yes, he likes mangoes. Last night I asked him if he would help me cut up a mango (he loves cutting work with his special safety knife), but when I got the pieces prepared, all he wanted to do was put as much of the mango into his mouth as he could. He kept both hands full with backup pieces of mango for when he finished the current bite.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Mango cutter. While my son was busily stuffing mango slices into his mouth, my daughter took a turn with the two-handed waffle cutter. This is a specific tool they learn to use in school. That's right, they learn how to cut up things. The waffle blade makes it much safer and they're taught how to hold it properly, with two hands, and press down. She was having so much fun I think she would have cut up three mangoes if we had had enough time before bed.
Fitness Update: It's been a while, did you notice? Easter week vacation in Florida and I had a cough and was not enthusiastic about exercising, so I ate chocolate bunnies and jelly beans instead. Back home and I went to the gym this morning for the first time in ten days. I miss vacation but it's good to be back.
Someone Once Said: Beware of the "Black Swan" fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you-with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the "Gigo Law," i.e., "Garbage in, garbage out."
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