on a lighter note...

[observe]

 

[cpr0312]

 

[Wheels]

 

[Hogpatrol]

I know I shouldn’t have done this, but I am 83 years old and I was in the McDonald’s drive-through this morning and the young lady behind me leaned on her horn and started mouthing something because I was taking too long to place my order. So when I got to the first window I paid for her order along with my own. The cashier must have told her what I'd done, because as we moved up she leaned out her window and waved to me and mouthed "Thank you.", obviously embarrassed that I had repaid her rudeness with a kindness. When I got to the second window I showed them both receipts and took her food too. Now she has to go back to the end of the queue and start all over again. Don't blow your horn at old people, they have been around a long time.

 

[Beretta391]

 

[Hogpatrol]

 

[nztimb]

View attachment 357113

What if we had one of these, less fancy but handle on the side to use morse code rings to get others on the same 5 or 6 member party line and three long turns to get the exchange to connect to other lines or numbers in other towns etc. Always said "working" when we picked up the handset to make a call to check if others were using the phone. Was bad manners not to and very bad manners to listen in on anothers call.

 

[observe]

 

[observe]

 

[observe]

GOOD ONE!---Shared

Herman Labuschagne
July 11, 2019 ·

Where marketing firms get our numbers from.

To all you people who always have something derogatory to say about me driving a classic Land Rover:

I bet your insurance premium isn't R112 per month, is it? That's US$8 for those who don't understand monopoly currency. And no, there is no typo. No zero missing at the end. It's one hundred and twelve Rand, Mr. R3,500-per-month-premium-for-your-Porsche-Cayenne...!

Yeah, so there are advantages to driving a Land Rover. At least one. And that's honest premiums that real-life people can afford.

So Outsurance phoned me last week.

The girl said she's got good news for me.

"Good news?" I muttered to myself, and smiled. "My favourite kind...!"

I think she said something about how my premiums are lower now than when I'd signed up, and that there's a no-claim bonus waiting for me in two or three months, and so on.

I said "that's nice. Thank you."

She said because I've been such a great customer, they would like to give me another R400 back to say thank you to you too. She said that essentially means free premiums for another 3-4 months.

I said "that's very nice. Thank you very much."

All the while I'm steeling my nerves and getting ready to duck. Like when you give a five year old a cricket bat for the first time. You just know the swing is coming. And it's gonna hit you on the cranium or on the shins if you don't stay wide awake.

So then came the punchline.

In order for me to receive my gift, I am requested to provide the numbers of a few of my friends whom they could call to offer their services also.

I said....

[Wait for it...]

I said...

"No."

That's all I said. Just "no".

She asked me "why?"

I said "because you hate being spammed. And I hate being spammed. And now you're asking me to help you spam my friends? Now what kind a of a friend would I be if I did that...?"

She said but then she can't give me my four hundred bucks!

I is said, "I guess so."

She said, "but that's a lot of money!"

I said, "I guess so."

She said, "are you sure?"

I said, "I think so, yes."

So she sighed.

And then she said good-bye.

So I have been thinking...

All these spam calls that I keep getting from insurance companies, investment schemes, stock trading gurus, and even from political parties and the SPCA. I've always wondered - just where in the world did they get my number?

And now I know.

From MY FRIENDS! ! !

All while I had been thinking the it was really the Russian Mafia or the CIA that allegedly bugs our computers and taps our phones. Or Wikileaks and teenage nerds that hack our computers and sell everything from our credit card numbers to our grocery lists to marketing super databases. And all the while I had been wrong. I never suspected my own friends...

Which makes me wonder...

Are they perhaps the same kind of friends who send me hurtful Land Rover jokes via Whatsapp every morning? About oil puddles, breakdowns and roofs that don't keep rain out?

I can't prove it.

But I do suspect it, even though I can't be entirely sure. But you know who you are - every one of you who give out my number to spam factories in exchange for just enough money to buy three large pizzas at Panarottis on a Wednesday.

Meanwhile, all I know for certain is that good friends are hard to come by in these fickle times we live in. And I treasure those who don't trample on my feelings with their Land Rover jokes, or make my life miserable by handing out my number to all who ask for it.

Yes, I have friends like that. And you too, know who you are. And you, my friends are the ones that I'd given up my four hundred bucks for.

 

[WAB]

What if we had one of these, less fancy but handle on the side to use morse code rings to get others on the same 5 or 6 member party line and three long turns to get the exchange to connect to other lines or numbers in other towns etc. Always said "working" when we picked up the handset to make a call to check if others were using the phone. Was bad manners not to and very bad manners to listen in on anothers call.
View attachment 357143

Our ring was one long, two short. Why do I remember that 50 years later and I can’t remember what I walked into the other room for?

 

[jacques smith]

 

[jacques smith]

Still got one on cabin wall. You’d be surprized how many wifes call, looking for their husbands

 

[cpr0312]

 

[nztimb]

Our ring was one long, two short. Why do I remember that 50 years later and I can’t remember what I walked into the other room for?

long,short short long as in X

 

[Brent in Az]

 

[Petey J]

View attachment 357113

Hey now! We just unplugged the last one of those in our house 2 years ago, and I'm 37.

It was a relic of my childhood (Wife and I live in my family's farmhouse, raising the 5th generation of the family to live in it), but still. It was plugged in and worked.

 

[JimP]

I worked on them and the whole phone system for over 30 years.

What I can't understand with cel phones is what people put up with. Noisy, static, dropped calls, and everything else. With a landline wired phone people would be calling repair at the first crackle of noise. But they put up with it because of the convenience

 

[Bullthrower338]

Our landlines in Montana worked well as long as it wasn’t raining, snowing, wind blowing to hard, wind blowing not quite hard enough and you held your mouth just right! Needless to say we didn’t spend much time on the phone.

 

[Petey J]

I worked on them and the whole phone system for over 30 years.

What I can't understand with cel phones is what people put up with. Noisy, static, dropped calls, and everything else. With a landline wired phone people would be calling repair at the first crackle of noise. But they put up with it because of the convenience

We got rid of traditional phones and went VOIP for our business. The phone company was horrible. A dozen calls over 25 days trying to get a single service call, and them lying about coming out. One of the lines had so much static it was unusable, when it rained all 3 lines were hard to hear. That had a junction box a block from our office that the wires laid on the ground for 8 months. We got 2 visits from the police for 911 hang ups, and a bunch of 411 charges before they figured out mice had gotten into the lines and were causing shorts to 911 and 411.