“We had a wall phone with a party line at one time. If you picked up the receiver while the other party was on the phone, you could listen to their conversation. We were taught to hang up right away of course. Good training.”
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My great aunt picked up the party line to hear 2 people talking. She wanted to talk to one of them so she listened for a couple of minutes. All the while my great uncle sat and watched her while he rocked in the old rocker. He watched and rocked, and rocked and watched. Then he said “it’s gonna chime” just the second before the cuckoo clock went off. She quickly hung up the phone, mad at my great uncle. Since they were the only ones with a cuckoo clock, she was caught snooping! I don’t think my mother ever laughed so hard!
Great story.