Answering The Phone

When I was little, answering the phone was a really big deal.  We were on a party line, and you never knew when you picked up the phone whether you would be able to place a call, so mostly, kids weren't allowed to place a call, but as the oldest, I was allowed to answer when it rang.

I remember receiving a call from someone selling something once as a child, maybe insurance or vacuum sweepers, and how shocked and appalled my parents were that someone was using their phone lines to try to sell something. 

We progressed up the phone ladder to our own line, and then touch tone and princess phones, we were quite the modern family.  And in my own family over the past 33 years we have progressed to answering machines, and cordless and cell phones.  We have kept the landline though.  I think it is going the way of the dinosaur, however.  It seems about the only calls we get on the landline are from people we don't want to hear from like sales people and politicians and most of those seem to be recorded instead of a real person. Are phone rarely rings and when it does, we say, "Should we answer it?"

It may be time to cut the lines as it were and be an entirely cellular family.  I am really getting tired of the recorded messages.... And I hardly ever answer the phone anymore.