The End of The Home Phone

We have had the same home phone number since 1993 when we moved to Payson.  My parents moved so often that I got more than one call from relatives trying to find out where they were and how they could get in touch with them.  People knew my number would be the same -- and now it isn't.  It was surprisingly stressful for me to cancel that number even though some of the younger generation don't even know what a home phone is, and mostly it was used by telemarketers -- and people who had discovered that they could get in touch with me that way when I forgot to turn the sound on my cell phone -- or had temporarily misplaced it.

So with the home phone cancelled, I needed to send back the box connecting the internet and the phone and the computer.  So I took it apart, and tried to figure out where to plug in things so that the internet would still work.  I could get it working on the main computer but not on anything else.  I was so frustrated.  I took time to eat so I wouldn't cry -- and then called our internet provider.  The nice man was helpful and finally decided to send someone out since he could see that our service wasn't quite as good as it had been originally anyway.

So a different nice man came yesterday, asked to see the router, and said something like, "Oh, this is funny".  He then proceeded to push a button and then said, "It should work now".  And it did.  I just laughed.  I'm sure in all of my turning the router on and off I had accidentally pushed something that shouldn't be pushed!  Anyhow he did get on the roof (with some wasp spray) and re-aim the thing on the roof so it wasn't aiming through a tree and so our service is better now anyway. 

I did realize as I was leaving Dan at home yesterday that he had no way to call anyone when he is home alone -- so now one of my old cell phones is being used as a tracfone with enough paid minutes to get him help if he ever needs it.  It's still cheaper than having a home phone -- but I still mourn the loss of something that has been a constant in our lives for so long.

***Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash