[xrmusn]

If you ‘suspected’ Mrs Mcgilicuddy was listening in, just say something ‘dramatic’ about her and wait for the gasp from HER and all the others..then the ‘click’...

Without thinking I will STILL say ice box and am a tad older than 30....

Of course, all us USN types (well military) can have a conversation using the ‘old’ words and it is sort of cryptic... (Don’t pull a Clark Gable saying I had a ‘gay old time’ last night in the 1930s reruns)

[sparklite2]

wait for the gasp from HER and all the others..then the ‘click’...

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There was this beer joint I frequented with my parents (kids did that then) that had a phone on the bar that had no dial on it; it was incoming calls only.

The pay phone in the back was for calling out, but someone figured out that dial phones transmitted a number of clicks based on the number you dialed. A seven, for example, had seven clicks which set a stepper relay at the phone company to that number.

So we would tap the receiver cradle on the dial-less phone to generate the numbers we wanted, and called out for free.

I don’t think we ever got caught.