Pay Phones

I'm curious. How long has it been since you've used one of these?



I'm guessing that for me it has been around seven years. Ever since I got my first cell phone.

That was until last night at the Orlando airport. I arrived at the airport overly early due to the shuttle schedule, then checked in. I planned on a nice long phone call with my beloved husband while I browsed the Sea World, Disney, and Universal gift shops. But then I realized that in the purse exchange that I'd done prior to the trip to the airport, my cell phone didn't make it in my carry-on. It was in my now-checked suitcase.

Now what?
I need to at least check in with Josh to tell him I've made it this far. He'll worry if he doesn't hear from me until 10:30 tonight.
Should I go up to a stranger and ask to use their phone for a sec?

And then I realized that people did manage to operate without cell phones back in the day. They used pay phones. And calling cards. After a little wallet digging, I found, to my surprise, that I still carried a calling card. Good to go.

Believe me, there wasn't exactly a long line of folks waiting to use the pay phone. I think I got some strange looks as I stood there filling Josh in on my travel updates. And my calling card, for the record, still has 363 minutes remaining.

It totally reminded me of The Office where Michael is trying to get his employees to buy into a company that makes calling cards. And then Jim assures him that no one uses calling cards anymore and that it is actually a pyramid scheme.