Remember when cordless phones were symbols of luxury? And before the split jack outlet, you had to manually plug in the dial-up connection & the phone would be busy when you were online downloading...research materials.
How about those "party lines" 😑
At least you had the satisfaction of being able to slam the phone down...
It was a non optional social convention to drop anything you were doing and answer the phone.
It was generally my mother calling…
People would get pissed if you didn't answer the phone right away, and might let it ring for 1/2 hr if they thought you were home. It was understood that part of being a good person was answering the phone within 7 rings. And to apologize if you didn't answer it until after the 7th ring.
What's even more shocking is that every year, a book was left on my doorstep that listed everyone's phone number and home address. The phone company doxxed everyone.
Ooo I still “just answer“ my phone occasionally if I’m in a good mood. Am I showing my age?
& then there’s Richard Matheson level of bad phone call en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_C...
Especially if they started asking awkward questions, and I'm sitting there thinking "What IS the colour of my underwear?".