Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for January 29, 2017

I know it’s counter-productive, but I’d be tempted to drop her smartphone into a sewer grate. Do smart-esses really need smartphones, anyway?

Lord knows things are not making sense now. And I am not just talking about phone booths.

The world and its technology is changing too fast for me to keep up and younger people to care about ‘old’ technology – ie anything from 10 years ago or earlier. I had to show a cousin how to open a Coca Cola bottle. Didn’t even try to explain to her what a ‘church key’ was.

I like my dumb phone ( flip phone ) I can actually talk to REAL people. Actually I call it a leash.

My flip phone is a life-line. Don’t use it much, but when I need it is there. Others can make it a leash, that is their business.

Those of us with visual problems, like me, aren’t able to use the tiny keyboards or read the text on tiny screens of most smart phones. So we are left behind…

It was occcasionally profitable to check the coin drop! It was frustrating that some jerk had always stolen the maps out of the book. And Superman was shafted when they went from booths to those egg shaped exclosures.

I miss old phones. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as slamming down the receiver on a nasty phone call.

Speak up, friend. It’s your four pence.

But we had two things we no longer have: privacy and not having to listen to stupid conversations…..

I’m not exactly young myself (nearly 60), but I’ll take my cell phone over a pay phone any day.

“Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.” — Ecclesiastes 7:10

At long last finally a Danae strip. I was beginning to think Wiley had retired her.

I got a cell phone after all the pay phones in my area were removed and the customer service folks at the drug store got tired of all the traffic using their phone.

I must be pre-jurassic …. phones only cost a dime when I was young. I was outraged when they went to a quarter.

Latest scam. If someone calls and asks Can You Here Me? DO NOT ANSWER, THEY ARE RECORDING YOUR “YES” TO USE TO VERIFY THINGS OVER THE PHONE WITH YOUR VOICE PRINT!!!

Back to the strip: At times like that, kids always have looked at their parents as if they were an alien species. History is so past.

I’m about as old as dad here, probably older, and I DO NOT miss phone booths. I like my smart phone, too. Too bad I need a VPN to make it safe to use in public…

I needed to call a taxi to get groceries home and realized I had forgotten my phone. Had to use a pay phone to call. I found myself most reluctant to actually put the handset close to my ear or mouth – a definite “ugh” factor. Never thought of this when pay phones were all we had!

And when we wanted to listen to music in the car, we shoved in these great things called 8-track tapes, and the music only stopped in the middle of a song four times per album.

I use my Android phone to… make calls, text message/Email or group-chat, play music or watch YouTube videos, take notes/memos down, take pictures, Navigations, wake me up to get to work or timing , do a Google search, buy or sell stuff and play Games.

In short… I love my Android phone!

Based on the above comments, I suspect many have started a sentence with “When I was young, …”

Quarters? Who here remembers nickel phone calls?

Excuse me while I shuffle off into the sunset, tail dragging in the dust behind me…

I’ve owned a cell phone since their inception and upgraded to the new ones along the years until I realized that I was paying for a whole bunch of crap I didn’t need or even use. So, I got rid of my contract phone and bought a “pay as you go” phone several years ago and couldn’t have been happier. That is until I broke it a day ago and in my search for another flipper I discovered they now cost more than some smart phones. I’ll pay the price though. Gotta say it has been somewhat liberating to not even have the flipper for a couple of days but emergencies do happen.

My fondest memory of phone booths is watching Maxwell Smart fall through the phone booth into CONTROL headquarters every week.

I started working for New England Telephone in 1970. Was a long distance operator and directory assistance operator. I totally remember the pay phones! And the sounds of the coins we had to count as they went in! Nostalgic moment!

Went up the block to mail something. (It was “required”) Mom sitting in her car was watching her teenaged son try to send some mail. (Literal) I stood with her for a LONG time while we patiently watched this boy examine every inch, including under, the mail box. FINALLY he found the handle that opened the mail slot. He looked over at his Mom. She nodded once, and he popped in the mail and jumped back in the car, obviously very happy with himself!

I still use a flip phone and I’m a millennial. I may not be able to get internet like my friends and coworkers, but I pay phone bills of less than $30 a month while they’re paying $100+. As for internet-on-the-go, I have other devices where I just bum off coffee shop wi-fi.

My dumb “flip phone” gets better reception than any of the “smart” phones the rest of the family have, and with neuropathy, I do NOT text anyway on those tiny keys or “touch screens” that go nuts when I touch ‘em. Phones are for TALKING on, and my dumb phone DOES have Bluetooth I can feed to my hearing aids and actually HEAR as well as talk! “Dumb” ain’t all so dumb!

I just mentioned in a reply to YatInExile that I remember, when you were actually able to sit down in a pay phone booth and close the door for privacy !

.

My grandkids think I’m telling them tales, when I say I grew up with only a radio and a record player. When we did get a television it was black&white !

They can’t believe we survived without a computer and cellphone !

A umber of years ago, my cousins and I were at someone’s house. My one cousin pointed across the driveway to some clotheslines and explained to his kids what they were used for. The kids just stared at him in disbelief.

There are some people who just can’t use a smart phone.They really need a phonebooth. https://youtu.be/h_tB0A2LprQ

Don’t even get me started on actual mechanics at a “service station”, and free air for a flat bicycle tire!

I remember Tanked they once made a phone-booth tank.

My phone box is blue and can take you anywhere and anywhere I want to go. Come along, Pond.

In my area, the only public phones that still exist are in schools. They are considered endangered species now.

I’m wondering if this strip is deeper than its obvious meaning. Is Wiley stating that we are all dinosaurs literally in that we are about to become extinct and also figuratively in that we are old and not up to date?