Gimme $500 on the Browns +10 vs. the Bengals in Cincy
Stupid people are news why?
1985 sounds about right. I recall that my parents were pretty happy about not having to rent a phone any longer.
Widow rented rotary phone for 42 years
She's 82 years old. The daughters ought to let her keep her old telephone.
She first leased this phone when she was 40. In 1985, when everybody had the option to opt of the lease, she was 61. It's not like the phone company went out to prey on 82-year-olds.
But, given the situation, the daughters should just find a way to buy a rotary phone and give it to their mother, or let her continue to use the phone she has always known. It is a lot to expect a 82-year-old to adopt new (to them) technology.
Gimme $500 on the Browns +10 vs. the Bengals in Cincy
I like old phones. I have a black rotary dial phone from the 1940s in my living room. In the kitchen, I have an oak wall phone, with a crank. In the den, there is a 1927 rotary dial candlestick phone.
The interesting thing is that they all work just fine, even the oak wall phone, except that you can't call out on it without hitting the receiver handle 10 times to get an operator.
That said, it is very sad that this old woman paid that lease fee for all those years. It is a shame.
My father-in-law died 3 years ago, and afterwards I sat down with my mother-in-law to help her get her bills, etc... straight. I looked at her telephone bill(s) and I was shocked, they had been leasing two phones from AT+T for over 30 years. I calculated that they had spent in the thousands renting these common phones, and their long distance plan was a joke. They were under the most expensive plan AT+T had, a real disgrace. I called AT+T to cancel their lease plus their local/long distance service and switch everything to Verizon's unlimited plan. Some "friendly" AT+T operator offered my mother-in-law a discount to stay, and I got so mad at him I had to tell him off. How in the world could you knowingly take advantage of people for all those years who didn't know what they were paying for and think that I would recommend my mother-in-law stay with your company? It was disgraceful to put it politely.
To get to the 14k number they multiplied 29.10 by 12 by 42. I hardly think she was paying $29.10 a month back in 1964.
Makes for a good story though, huh?
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
Although they're not rentals anymore, two beige, rotary, wall-mount phones are still serving their purpose in my parents' home, just as they have been since 1963. During these 43 years, I don't think they've ever needed service.
The last time I used either of them, I had to chuckle at how out-of-practice I'd become at using the rotary dial. As a teen, I was quite a fast dialer, especially for radio call-in contests.