Pluggers by Rick McKee for July 05, 2024

You mean on ALL calls (with the acceptation of kids and grandkids, of course)! Everyone else, don’t call me, I’ll call you – maybe, but probably not!)

As young parents to an inquisitive 4yr old, we did use alot of code words for different things we would do around the house, yeah, let your imagination run with that one. One of the code words we used for going to the bathroom and being in there awhile, if you catch my drift, was “long distance.” Around that time there was a telephone ad on tv for, of all things, free long distance! With counseling and medication, the kid turned out ok.

Me no see that kinda phone in years.

I try to be brief with most calls …. Distance does not matter ;-)

The challenge is to talk only in words of one syllable … and very softly. (—

The only long distance calls I’m in now are if I have to call my credit card company, and that’s maybe once every couple of years. Where I live, I remember when any time you dialed more than 5 numbers to complete your call, it would be a long distance call and would cost more, sometimes a lot more.

BR549: the only phone number I know…

Hard to tell what’s long-distance these days, with dial-10 and “keep your number”. One acquaintance lives in California and still has a Hawaiian area code.

I ‘voice dialed’ to call my friend Bjorn. He was driving home in Amsterdam…from Belgium. Loud and clear connection. Calling my local clinic, not so much.

On a phone with a cord!

This 1995 FCC “Statistics of Communications Common Carriers” report has some historical rate charts starting on page 277. During weekdays in 1980 AT&T charged $2.17 ($6 in today’s money) for a five minute call from NYC to LA. Nights and weekends the same call cost $0.87 ($2.40).— posted by jon1270 at 12:44 PM on March 31, 2012

You’re a plugger if you understand all the jokes in “Pluggers”.

You’re a “millennial” if you don’t.

Plugger doesn’t do Hollywood gossip.

A study video on YouTube shows young people being presented with a rotary phone and told to make a call – they couldn’t.

And remember to call us collect, person to person, to let us know you made it home safely!

Plugers remember how expensive long distance calls were.

Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Just email me.

or if you have a party line…

My brother and I wound up with the same first name because Dad was stationed in Alaska when my younger brother was born. Mom wanted to talk baby names at $20/minute. Dad said, “Call him Junior.” and hung up. Since I already had the same first name as Dad, this has led to lifelong confusion trying to get institutions to use my middle name. (We also have the same middle initial.)

This is one of those Pluggers comics that really only resonates with the real life Pluggers ourselves.

There are very, very few domestic long distance plans anymore with per-minute rates. Virtually all wireless comes with unlimited domestic calling (and is part of the reason why people can keep their wireless number even when they move somewhere else; area codes are becoming increasingly irrelevant as the wireless number is becoming your “number for life”) and quasi-landline services that use VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocols) never had anything but flat rate domestic LD. Think Vonage or Magic Jack, or your local cable company’s “voice service” as examples.

So for this panel to be truly relevant, that has to be a traditional wired landline with an outdated long distance plan attached to it. I bet no Caller ID on that phone, and I’d even be surprised if it has Call Waiting.

If you still try to find the operator to make an overseas call. :)

“You have a collect call from Haddababy Itsaboy”

Call 10-10-321 to help you save!

90s people know about 10-10-321 commercials.