About a week ago my home phone went out. I came home from work, and it just wasn't working. I called and reported the outage, they had me test a few things, then they tested the line, and they determined that it was an external problem and scheduled a service call. For 10 days later!
But that's not the point. The point is for 5 days (they fixed it earlier than scheduled), I had no home telephone. I called a few people to let them know that (including most importantly my parents). But if you didn't know, you wouldn't know. There was no indication from the outside that the number wouldn't work and I wouldn't know if anyone left a message. It was quite odd.
I know lots of people who don't have a home telephone anymore. Instead they rely on mobile phones. My brother, for example, doesn't have a home phone. In part because he's rarely home; he runs a bar and is there more than anywhere else. My niece and her husband don't have a home telephone; neither do my cousin and his wife who are about the same age. In that case, I think it's a generational thing. I don't actually know the statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that the percentage of home phones drops substantially among those under age 30. Even age 35.
But for me, I felt disconnected. What you need to know is that I have TWO cell phones. I have one for work and one for home. So it's not like I couldn't make a telephone call. I could and did make calls during those 5 days from my home. But I still felt as though I was living in the 19th century, before having a home phone was a normal thing.
The other thing that not having a home phone reminded me is that there are other aspects of my life that depend on home phone service. First, I had no access to the Internet. So no blogging (I try not to blog at work - seems inappropriate). No games on Facebook. While I can post and comment on Facebook via my iPhone, you can't play Facebook games on an iPhone. Likewise, I could check my personal email via my iPhone, but responding was a bit more challenging.
Second, my home alarm system is tied to my home phone. I could set the alarm. But if it was triggered (and really, I hope that NEVER happens because I'm not sure what I will do), the automatic dialer that would call the security service and let them know that my alarm was going off wasn't going to work. So I set the alarm and kept a mobile phone by my bed so that I could call if the alarm did go off. It wouldn't solve the problem of having an alarm incident while I was at work. But it would hopefully have solved the problem of an alarm going off while I was sleeping (though, as I said, I NEVER want that to happen).
So there I was, caught between the 19th century - when the phone hadn't yet been invented much less become prevalent in people's homes - and the 21st century - when the younger generations don't use home phones but rely on mobile devices instead.
Perhaps the 19th century wouldn't have been so bad, because we just wouldn't have known better. But I'm glad to be back in the 21st century, complete with home phone service (Internet and alarm system too).
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