This morning, I disconnected my landline. For nearly 40 years, I had the same number: 549-6970. I loved how it rolled off the tongue. So easy to remember, almost lyrical. It made me sad to think of it being reassigned to someone else – someone who wouldn’t appreciate it as I did.
I should have cut the cord years ago. It’s been little more than a magnet for junk calls, much like the junk mail filling my post office box. I used to keep it as a backup in case the internet went out. But now, even landlines run on broadband. Even so, I wasn’t ready to let go of my old friend tethered to the wall.
That string of numbers, 549-6970, was a part of my history. It was the phone on which I spent hours talking to friends and family.
Why We Wrote This
Sometimes, there’s wisdom in the “outmoded” ways of life, as our essayist discovered. When she disconnected her landline, she bade goodbye to an era of spontaneous conversations and close connections.
Back in the old days, I’d return home from a trip and race to check the answering machine. Often, it was my mother. “Nothing urgent,” she’d say in her Polish-accented voice, tinged with melancholy, “but call when you get a chance.”
After she lost her ability to speak, I missed those guilt-laden messages.
I also liked that the landline was never associated with any one person. It was simply part of the house, like a stereo system (another part of my life that I’ve replaced with new technology).
Which is why, when the phone rang in my house when I was growing up, if you weren’t the first to answer it, everyone knew your business. “Are you friends with Amy again?” my sister would ask.
If the phone rang and I happened to pick it up, I might end up talking to my mother’s best friend for just a few minutes. She always wanted to know how I was doing. That kind of connection never happens now when we only talk to the people whom we’ve meant to call or who meant to call us. It makes us a little more isolated from each other.
These days, I rarely call anyone. If I do call, I’ve usually texted them first to check if it’s a good time to talk. I don’t even like talking on the phone anymore, except with an old friend from high school with whom I used to gab for hours every day after school. I don’t even like talking to my husband when we’ve been apart for a few days. I feel awkward, and I often want to get off.
When my cell rings, I often feel hijacked by the unexpected interruption. And even though I know I can just decline the call, it still feels intrusive. How dare you demand my attention the minute you want to talk to me when I might be at the movies or shopping?
One of the great things about a landline was that it was meant to stay in one place – unlike my smartphone, which I must carry everywhere like a ball and chain lest I fail to hear the ring.
I could never miss a call coming in on 549-6970. Its shrill, unmistakable jangle could penetrate through any distraction.
And that’s precisely what prompted me to call the phone company today – another piercing, early-morning call from a telemarketer. There I was, dripping wet from the shower, dashing to answer, only to hear the familiar sales pitch from my “best friend,” Cardholder Services. Enough was enough. I called and disconnected my service.
But after I hung up, I felt sad. I realized the landline was more than just a phone for me. It was a symbol of a time when we talked to each other rather than texted, when spontaneous calls turned into hourslong heart-to-hearts.
There was something so wonderfully unplanned about those conversations – someone called, you answered, and the next thing you knew, you were lying on the floor with the cord wrapped around your fingers, laughing or crying or listening to someone on the other end.
No calendar invite, no “Can you talk now?” preamble. You didn’t need a reason to call. You just did. And that kind of closeness is hard to come by now.
Disconnecting 549-6970 felt like closing a chapter – its dial tone is now just a memory – but a part of me will always be waiting for its loud ring.
