Member Of The Rotary Club

I will never, EVER get used to seeing Adam Ant and Duran Duran vinyl albums in antique shops. It nauseates me to see my youth tossed into plastic milk crates right next to the milk glass, art deco costume jewelry, and old, dusty pillbox hats.

That said, coming across a “vintage” rotary dial phone–also from my youth–next to all of that same stuff last month didn’t really bother me. Go figure. Maybe it’s because I didn’t hang posters of rotary dial phones on my bedroom walls, and I certainly didn’t spend every waking moment swooning as I watched rotary dial phone videos on MTV.

It occurred to me when I picked up the phone to check it out more closely that my kids never experienced the “joys” of having to be patient while dialing a phone number. I called J over and said, “Check this out. Want to see how I had to dial my home phone number when I was a kid?”

I dialed it out for him, using my ACTUAL first phone number ever (747-8364: some things you just don’t forget), and explained how frustrating it was to make a mistake while dialing because going back to start all over took a lot longer than it does these days.

As I dialed, I fell in love with the sound of it all over again and suddenly wished for a moment that I could go back to the days when we actually had to KNOW a phone number before dialing it and not being overly concerned with the time it took to do so, or the finger burn that was a byproduct of using that kind of phone (some things you just don’t forget).

Then again, thanks to technology I can hear the sound whenever I want. I guess I’ll stick with the 21st century.