We had three phone calls on the landline. We know they are going to be nuisance calls but there;s always the possibility it might be a call I want to take. It never is.
Number One was a call from a man telling us that the roof insulation we had installed ten years ago was dangerous and needed replacing. His company, it seemed, would replace it for us and help us institute legal action against the original installers. Julia asked where he was calling from and he said “London”. When she said, “No, what company are you calling from?” he hung up. To the best of my knowledge fibreglass isn’t dangerous, lasts forever (though it does go and get less efficient) and shouldn’t be replaced by strangers who ring at random.
Number Two hung up before I could get to it.
Number Three was a lady who delivered the alarming news that my Sky TV equipment was out of guarantee and needed me to take out a new warranty. I’m not sure what was most alarming – the prospect of spending money or the fact I’d got a Sky TV and hadn’t noticed.Was it possible, I asked her, that she was lying to me and was in fact a criminal trying to defraud a vulnerable, though admittedly cantankerous, old man? The phone line must be faulty as it cut us off before I finished my question.
And that, dear readers, is just one of the reasons that I hate modern life and am thinking of having the landline taken out.
On the other hand, by adept use of Amazon and Tesco delivery services I think I have managed to organise presents and chocolates for Julia’s birthday without setting foot in a shop, so there are some good modern things, just not many.
I wrote this a couple of days ago and seem to have forgotten to post it . . .
I have added “senior moment” to the tags. Julia suggested “idiot”.
We got rid of our landline about 15 years ago. No regrets at all
That’s encouraging to hear. 🙂
I have a weak signal at home on my mobile phone so rely on the landline for calls. Unfortunately, BT have just switched us over to having our landline through the internet because they are phasing out copper cables. Despite all the work done recently on the electricity pylons, cables, sub-station and the cutting back of trees near the cables we still get power-cuts regularly. This now means that when we get a power-cut the land-line phones don’t work and we have to rely on our mobile phones. Hmmm…
They were just feeding us some guff about cables and boxes and why the internet is so expensive. They said mobile phones were now included in the new package. I said that after the trouble we’ve had over the years I don’t intend swapping s reliable service for BT. You have my sympathy.
Thank you 🙂
🙂
The unwanted calls are a nuisance, for sure. We block some, NoMoRobo others, and don’t answer calls from numbers we don’t know. Legitimate callers can leave a message.
A lot of planning. I would love to return to the days when only friends and family rang.
If only we would bring the best of the old along with the best of the best of the new!
Here is one memorable phone call from The Twilight Zone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Call_(The_Twilight_Zone)
Now I’m too frightened to go to bed . . .
I keep the land line because it is much more pleasant to chat on a land line than a mobile phone but it is an extravagance. Also I never leave the land line on silent by accident so I don’t miss calls on it.
Lovely to see that herons are internationally grumpy.
Yes, I recently missed an important call by accidentally having my phone on silent. 🙂
We still have our land line for two reasons. 1) I refuse to take my phone to bed with me, and I know that I wouldn’t hear it ring while I’m sleeping. So, if my mom or one of the kids needed me in the middle of the night, I would sleep right through it. The landline rings LOUD. 2) I have LONG conversations with my mom and kids and I just never got used to the cell phone delay. I prefer to talk on a landline. But almost every day I decide to get rid of it because of the spam calls.
Our kids would never think of using the landline. I have simplified my life by having no friends and all my relations ring my sister and she tells me what is happening. Thinking about it, the only landline calls I get are nuisance calls. I’d be lonely without them . . .
I used to relish keeping them occupied for as long as possible, but now I caned be assed – two words usually do.
I have been rebuked by Julia and the shop owner for some of the things I have said to nuisance callers.
That’s an amusing typo by the way (unless it’s a Freudian slip). I won’t quote it, so you can alter it and it won’t be here for years to come . . .
We get rid of our landline a couple of years ago. I highly recommend it. A lot less nuisance calls.
I think we will be doing it soon, as we will also be changing our internet supplier.
We haven’t had a land line for years. Unfortunately, I still get unwanted calls on my cell phone. My solution? If I don’t recognize the number, I don’t answer the call. If it’s legit, a message is left. If not, sometimes a message is still left, but I can delete the bogus message quick as anything.
That is the answer, Laurie
Yes, I think it’s the way forward. Julia still gets nuisance calls on her mobile, and treats them as you suggest. I don’t have that problem, nobody rings me apart from the Anticoagulant Service and my sister. 🙂
Same here!
It looks like the way to go.