Does anyone else miss their home phones?

Does anyone else miss their home phones?

I gave in and gave up my home phone a while ago. It was costing me sixty dollars a month, give or take, to do nothing but sit there on its little oasis of an end table. Nothing but the wireless phone, fully charged, with its built-in answering machine occupied the space. I have a cell phone, which everyone else uses to call me. That is everyone but my mom.

My mother’s phone was programmed with my landline number, and she refused to change it. If I didn’t answer my home phone, she would leave her usual message, and the silly little green light would flash interminably announcing her call. When I asked why she didn’t call my cell, she explained, with exaggerated patience, that she didn’t want me “charged extra by the cell phone company”. I tried to explain it, but she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) understand.

Recently, I stopped using my landline altogether, opting instead for my cell with all of the built-in conveniences. I’ll admit, I don’t know how I lived without it. But, there sat my home phone, mocking me with it’s unlit indicator. Taking up valuable real estate on my end table. So, after considerable deliberations, I gave up my home phone.

Today I had left home before sunup, and was gone for the entire day. In the rush of getting everything done that had to be done, I found I had lost total track of time. Apparently, even more than I realized, because when I finally got home I dropped my bags and walked straight to the spot where the phone/answering machine once rested. Instead of the little burst of joy I might have received at a blinking light telling me mom called, there sat an empty end table, in need of dusting.

I’d give up every piece of technology to go back to the day when that stupid little green light blinked. To press a button and hear my mom say, “Hey baby girl, it’s just me. Nothing important. Call me when you can.”

But, since my mom passed, no one called that number.