It's the 80s and I'm a teenager - is my mother being unreasonable?

[PresidentJoey]

She's just gone mental about the phone bill Apparently I'm not allowed to speak to my best friend on the phone for an hour after school!?? I'm sick of her controlling me!!

My dad just did a redial after I used the phone, listened to the clicks and worked out the number then looked it up in my (private) address book and found out I'd been calling a boy!

@Freddiefox

Can’t she get the bt friends and family deal and add your BF’s number! So unreasonable, so what if you’re been at school together all day

That was introduced in 1992. OP will have a long wait!

We didn’t have a phone until 1985!

We had to us a neighbours (if they were in & put some money in the box they kept at the side of the phone), or the phone box at the top of the road.

It was cheaper to write to your friend during the holidays. Post letter Mon, then get reply on Weds.

But at least we had central heating.

Don't worry about the phone lock, a pair of nail scissors inserted to the key hole will unlock it with a bit of jiggling.

We keep getting a heavy breather phoning up so I've put my ghetto blaster in the hallway and he gets a blast of Meat Loaf when he phones.

@Carlissa

My dad just did a redial after I used the phone, listened to the clicks and worked out the number then looked it up in my (private) address book and found out I'd been calling a boy!

You're in shit now!

My mum picks up the other extension and shouts Bye Bye Bye repeatedly until I have to hang up. Cow.

I remember me and my bf leaving notes on a hook on my back door!!
Never had a phone. Sometimes not even a TV.

If you didn't go through the phone book looking for "amusing" names to phone uo and talk shite to.
You weren't an older child in the 80s

@PresidentJoey

Ha! I actually gave him shit for that violation of privacy!

Still can't believe the cheek of it, I'm 17 FFS!!

1980 I was 18 and had my own place with my own phone so I could call as much as I wanted. I bought a little tape answering machine and thought I was so cool recording silly messages on it.

[quote Carlissa]@PresidentJoey

Ha! I actually gave him shit for that violation of privacy!

Still can't believe the cheek of it, I'm 17 FFS!![/quote]
At 17 we know everything sista!

Could you use a call box to call her if you have some 2ps? Then call to listen to one of the latest pop hits. Finally call to check the accurate time to set your watch.

MIL was that DM, & would yell at all 3 kids for wasting money on the 'phone.

Now, her DS pays for her mobile as she's in a care home,
and could scream at her 'phoning friends in Canada & nattering on about the weather, what they saw on TV etc.

Early 90s. Watching american films and marvelling that the teens in them had their own phones in their bedrooms!

My parents installed a payphone. Unfortunately I found the stash of old 10p's that my Dad had kept, and learned how to jimmy the cashbox part open, so I could keep re-using the old 10 p's in it.

I was never off the phone!

@PresidentJoey

She's just gone mental about the phone bill Apparently I'm not allowed to speak to my best friend on the phone for an hour after school!?? I'm sick of her controlling me!!

?? Local calls didn’t cost extra in the 1980s. The phones (landlines) were a flat monthly fee. There was no such thing as paying for xxx minutes back then.

Listen, I don't even have a phone. I go round the corner to the phone box and ring my boyfriend, whose mum gives him grief after like five MINUTES when she doesn't even know for sure that he's called me back.

Go and get a glass of Blue nun to drown your sorrows.

We didn't have a telephone until I went to university in the early 1980s. But even when a friend's father locked the dial in her family's 'phone we all knew about how to jiggle the receiver rest to dial out!

@Igmum, a boy in my year can do an impression of a trimphone! He got an award at the end of the year for it. (He used to do it in assemblies until the teachers worked out who it was.
Oh, and I worked out how to unjam the coin return slot on the pay phone at school, so never go short at the tuck shop.

Reminded me of this one time... Not in the 80's, more like the 90's I rented multiple films out on sky box office without realising I had done wrong. There was no restrictions on it so I didn't know Any difference til my grandparents said their bill was sky high 😅😅

Our phone was in the front room and my mum used to make herself a cup of tea and come and settle herself on the sofa to listen to my calls.

I envied friends who used to freeze to death in their unheated hallways but could have a private phone call.

@Spanielsarepainless

We didn't have a telephone until I went to university in the early 1980s. But even when a friend's father locked the dial in her family's 'phone we all knew about how to jiggle the receiver rest to dial out!

When I was at uni the whole student accommodation block shared one pay phone downstairs. Always so embarrassing when a fit lad knocked on my door only to say 'your mum's on the phone....'

@BackBackBack

Early 90s. Watching american films and marvelling that the teens in them had their own phones in their bedrooms!

My parents installed a payphone. Unfortunately I found the stash of old 10p's that my Dad had kept, and learned how to jimmy the cashbox part open, so I could keep re-using the old 10 p's in it.

Didn't happen, if he went to the buyer of controlling calls by a pay phone...

your dad wasn't that thick

Bother