Long Distance Calling

Our home phone rarely rings. I would venture to say, that is the case in most households. Now that everyone has an umbilical cord attached to a cell phone…who needs to call the house phone. Plus…who wants to make small talk with PaulA or Kat…when it is Bri they want to talk to.

Back in the day, we didn’t have cell phones that would conveniently ring in our pocket…playing a Bob Marley ringtone. I remember when I got a call at home…whoever answered the phone would yell through the house, “Kat…Telephone.” I would yell back, “Coming.” But every now and then I would get the mother load of calls….

“IT’S LONG DISTANCE.” Whenever you heard this, you were expected to high tail it to the phone…ASAP. There was to be no dilly dallying or finishing what you were doing. Nope. You were expected to break your neck or break your toe…it didn’t matter…just as long as you got your ass to the phone. It was Long Distance Calling….and extra tick tocks were costly.

I didn’t get many long distance calls…not until I met my boyfriend, PaulA from CT…and it was summer vacation. I remember the first time I called PaulA long distance at his house. He asked me to call him on their “kid’s phone”….woah. How cool was that to have two phone lines. Now that I am a parent, I understand why his parents wanted a separate line for the kids….they had seven children.

Modern technology has made life easier…with just a reach into your pocket or pocketbook…you can easily check your caller id, read a text message or actually answer. But nothing beats the exhilaration I felt whenever I would hear…“Kat…Phone….IT’S LONG DISTANCE”…just knowing it was PaulA on the other end….dropping what I was doing…running through the house…tripping over the dog….knocking over the chair. Waaaay more exciting.