Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to miss the phone on the wall

27 replies

Sassielassie · 22/10/2018 21:49

I understand the irony of posting this on social media.. but for those of you out there of a certain age... does anyone else miss the days when you had to sit down in the house to use the phone? The kind with the big curly cord attaching the handset to the phone.
I miss when people used to sit down and take the time to actually have a proper conversation with each other. No distractions. No third party conversations (which was thought of as v rude)Just nice long chats catching up on everything in your life.
Im fed up calling people who put me on speaker while they clean the kitchen or drive to pick people up or put me on hold to take another call or have other conversations with people who walk in the room while im on the phone to them.
I dont want to text everything or picture my life or put my whole life on fakebook. I want to speak to another human being but im beginning to feel like the only one who wants to actually talk. When did everyone become so busy that they cant take time out anymore? Rant over! Sorry (maybe this is why no one WANTS to talk to me lol)

OP posts:
lovewatchingrainfall · 22/10/2018 21:52

No I agree. This is why we have a phone on the wall, with a cable so I have to sit down. I might have a 3rd party conversation at the same time generally to tell the toddler to put that down or don't do that. But then people don't tend to call that phone anymore they just text. The phone conversation is slowly dieing out I feel.

Fantasisa · 22/10/2018 21:54

Another advantage is that you could always find the bloody thing. Whenever our house phone rings we can’t track it down until it has stopped.

AlphaBravo · 22/10/2018 21:55

We still have one at my parents. It's on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Have to sit on the stairs to use it 😁

Chouetted · 22/10/2018 21:56

Shivering in the front hall to take a phone call in winter? The mad dash down the stairs if anyone phoned in the early morning? Paying through the nose for non-local calls?

No, I don't miss those days.

MyHairNeedsASnip · 22/10/2018 21:56

I miss sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, freezing my arse off, whispering so nobody could hear. Or maybe I miss my teens Smile

EvaHarknessRose · 22/10/2018 21:57

You could get one of those telephone tables with the little seat to go in the hallway.

Walkingdeadfangirl · 22/10/2018 21:58

You can still have land lines, no one is forcing you to use a mobile.

Original poster
Sassielassie · 22/10/2018 22:07

@walkingdead no your missing the point. Before the days of the mobile phone and social media etc people used to really make time to TALK to each othet on the phone. Like other posters have said.. thete was even a designated spot in the house where you went to talk and you concentrated on nothing but the other person on the other end of the line. THIS is what i miss! Not the actual phone lol

OP posts:
Original poster
Sassielassie · 22/10/2018 22:16

Sadly i could buy a landline phone. I could buy a telephone table and i could plank my arse on the bottom step in the hall and pretend im still living in the 70s but the person on the other end will still be cleaning their kitchen with me on speaker or driving down the motorway with their windows open or paying for their groceries in Tescos. Im just getting old and starting to think things were better in the good old days. Time to switch to Gransnet lol

OP posts:
GrabbyMcGrabby · 22/10/2018 22:23

I don't know many people who like long phone calls anymore apart drunken friends who live abroad and phone after a night out. T.e.d.i.o.u.s! Can I forward their calls to you? Grin

Pebblespony · 22/10/2018 22:25

Not being able to hear the bloody tv cos my mother wanted to talk for an hour to Auntie Nora about her sciatica and the phone and tv were in the same room. Yeah, I really miss that.

bluebump · 22/10/2018 22:26

My neighbours still have one, it’s at the bottom of the stairs on a little unit.

CuddlyChicken · 22/10/2018 22:28

Actually YANBU.

WTFIsAGleepglorp · 22/10/2018 22:31

Telephone tables with incorporated seats are in the charity shops, along with television cabinets with their missing back panels.

There's nothing stopping anyone from getting a phone plugged into the wall.

TheNoodlesIncident · 22/10/2018 22:33

I have a black Post Office bakelite telephone OP. Still works properly and dialling a number is such an enchanting step back in time... but I had to unplug it because the ringer is SO LOUD and it can't be turned down!

(So it sits looking nice in the hall)

I have a friend who rings me for a lovely chat, she is very much a chatterbox so if she rings I put the kettle on and settle in Grin

Original poster
Sassielassie · 22/10/2018 22:59

@GrabbyMcGrabby im totally laughing. I have a vision of you while you stand listening to drunken nonsense through gritted teeth lol

OP posts:
Original poster
Sassielassie · 22/10/2018 23:00

@Pebblespony Hahaha Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
Sassielassie · 22/10/2018 23:02

@Thenoodlesincident maybe i should give your lovely friend my number and she can phone me too😁

OP posts:
PersonaNonGarter · 22/10/2018 23:03

And on Rosanne they had a wall phone with a really long cable. I was jealous.

GhoulishGremlins · 22/10/2018 23:04

Can I get half a pass? I use my mobile but I have several hour long chats with mates where we are only focused on each other Grin

Rebecca36 · 22/10/2018 23:07

When first married, we lived in a tiny terraced house. People on one side had a 'phone on the wall and we heard every ring, quite loudly! We didn't complain but it made us certain never to have one.

They did complain when we had baby waking in the early hours!

Still have a landline but rarely use it or hear it. Whenever it rings, it's nearly always 'junk' call.

SlowlyShrinking · 22/10/2018 23:07

And on Rosanne they had a wall phone with a really long cable. I was jealous
That was the very first thing I thought of when I read the thread title!

MereDintofPandiculation · 22/10/2018 23:11

Still have long phone calls with my elderly friends. It seems to be a generation thing. So I don' t miss it because I still do it, but I know that DCs generation seem to communicate solely in pictures.

Original poster
Sassielassie · 22/10/2018 23:11

@Ghoulishgremlin. Oh dear. Your post has made me realise the problem is not with the phone but with my friends and family Confused. And if the one constant in ALL the calls is ME.. then maybe im just REALLY BORINGShock and they cant be arsed taking the time to talk to me Hmm. Now im off to start another thread about how to cope when you realise you are really really boring...maybe i should join the Steve Davis fan club! Grin

OP posts:
tillytrotter1 · 22/10/2018 23:15

Living in Norfolk a landline is essential, I can't go and stand at the bottom of the garden in winter. Last week I was on the mobile to Sky trying to get my broadband speed beyond 0.??? mps, I had to sit in the garden and either the USAF or RAF decided to have a fly past, frightened the life out off the person on the other end!