27 October 2014

Buggy Whips

If the title of my post confuses you, let me explain.
Until the early 1900's, when you wanted to deliver milk, move across country, or simply take your sleigh "over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house", you probably used a vehicle powered by oats and hay. Some of those powerplants did their jobs without an octane booster. Some needed a little extra help. That little bit of help might have been supplied by a device that looked like a stick with a length of leather shoelace attached to it.
When engines of one sort or another replaced horses as powerplants, many workers toiling in factories designed to produce Buggy Whips suddenly found themselves unemployed.

I still have the Buggy Whip's cousin in my home. It's called a "landline" or "hard wired" telephone.
If you know my name, you can still look me up... I'm "in the book".
And that's the reason I've continued paying the bill to keep the landline. For years, while I had my own little helicopter business, it was a valuable tool:
"Hey, let's call Greybeard and sign little Jimmy up for helicopter flight lessons."
And they did.
To this landline we added an answering machine and a copier/printer/fax machine.
Convenient.

Over the last two weeks that phone has rung approximately four times a day.
We screen ALL our calls on that line through the answering machine. Here's the way these calls have sounded:
First, there's dead silence for three seconds. Then we hear, "Hello!  We're calling all conservative republicans to action to defeat 'Blah blah politician or policy' in the upcoming election."
Here's what's irritating-
Those are the ONLY calls we get for the money we're throwing at that "Buggy Whip".

We're getting ready to spend several months away from the Great White North.
Funds we spend on that device could take me and my bride out to a nice dinner a couple times a month.
Much as I hate to no longer be listed in "The Book", I think it's time to de-Luddite, don't you?

Discussion?

3 comments:

cary said...

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World and I have not had a landline for several years now, since the alarm company let slip that they have a nifty device that is cellular in nature and cannot be cut, leaving the alarm company to monitor silence. We both have our cell phones, and the people we meet get our numbers directly from us.

However, we aren't running any businesses out of the house, and we have no reason to have a business listing in The Book. Are you still running any businesses?

No?

Take Sara Jean out to dinner while you are avoiding the snow drifts.

Ed Bonderenka said...

Depends on your cell connection at home. Ours is not so good from any vendor.

Anonymous said...

I still have a phone because, up in the Sierras, I don't have cellular coverage; I'm too far from the freeway for that to be dependable. So: land line.

BZ