the transformation of the phone in my lifetime

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My husband and I were talking today about how far some things have come. When I was a kid, only the rich had cell phones, and they were absolutely nothing like they are today. Everyone relied on landlines. There were payphones everywhere. You had to hope whoever you were trying to contact was actually home when you called, especially if you were stuck somewhere and trying to contact them through a payphone. I think the thing that really baffled me most was how some landlines worked. When I was a kid, I went to this small elementary school out in the middle of nowhere that was part of a bigger school district that was about 30 minutes away. That district had six elementary schools at the time (there are three now; I actually work in the district, but the school I went to is no longer open). The school I went to was the only one in the country, and it took the kids from three of the smaller towns and all of the country kids in between. My best friend as a kid lived in a town just a little ways from me. I lived in the town where the school was located. Here's the baffling part: in order to talk to her, I had to have her call me because she was long-distance for me to call, but I wasn't long-distance for her to call. I could call the city farther from her for free, but she was closer, and I couldn't call her for free. They had the same setup with the town my dad grew up in, just a ways down the road from her; that was a different school district. They could call her town, but her town couldn't call their town without paying long-distance. We could never understand why it was set up this way. I have to guess why we could call the bigger city without it being long distance was because it was kind of our base city where everything was, but it doesn't explain why it could call us and the other town I couldn't call. I never understood why it cost long distance for a call to go one way but not the other. It to this day baffles me. Most people who lived through the 90s and would make a call on a payphone remember leaving the collect call message "You are receiving a call from: MomI'mAtTheMallPickMeUP. Would you like to accept these charges?" and of course the mom would be like "no" and then promptly leave to pick you up from the mall. There was a commercial about it at one point: Bob had a baby; it's a boy. Eventually the evolution of the cell phone evolved, and people started getting them when I was in high school. I didn't get one until I could pay for it myself. At the time, it was mostly just calling, and you had to pay for your minutes, and then you could get nights and weekends free. Then they put in where you could call someone with the same carrier for free. Eventually they added texting and that would cost so much per text or it would take from your minutes. Then there were picture messages. It's crazy to think how much cell phones have evolved over the past twenty years. I remember my first cell phone was the LG 8300, and that thing could take a beating. I dropped it down the stairs a few hundred times, and then I gave it to my husband, whom I had just started dating at the time, because I had upgraded, and that thing went through even more with him. It had flown off the top of a moving truck and barely had a dent; it had been run over by a car, and it kept on working. My mom had the same phone that got run over while it was open, and that did break it, but what was crazy is it was still working even while it was in pieces. It's insane to think how much that phone went through and survived, and now some phones will crack if you barely drop them. I miss the simplicity of my old phone. Smartphones are nice, but they have kind of ruined society. Now everyone is always staring at their phones. Back in the day, there was texting and phone calls, but you couldn't do much else on them. Now they are basically a mini computer in your pocket, and people are always on them. I remember originally not even wanting a cell phone because I hated the idea of people calling me while I was out and about, and now I feel lost without it because I'm afraid something could happen to someone and I wouldn't know. It's insane how far we have come. I remember in high school having to use the pay phone to call and get a ride after the football game (I was in marching band), and my mom would always say she wished I had a cell phone then, but she wasn't willing to pay for it, so I never got one. When I first started dating, I didn't have one, so my mom would give me hers so I could call the home phone if I needed to. She hated the idea of me going out with a guy and having something happen. I eventually bought my own shortly after that. There was also something about being a kid and having to ask your friend's parents to speak to your friend. Having a landline meant knowing more about who your kids talked to and what they were doing, which is sort of ironic because in every other aspect back then your parents had no clue where you were or what you were doing, but they sure knew who you were talking to and occasionally listened in on conversations. I could have wrapped half of my family in the phone cord from our phone in the kitchen, trying to get away so they couldn't hear me, but there was no safe place to go with a cord still attached; albeit I could still go pretty far with it, that thing went on for miles. Prior to our push-button phone with the comically long cord, we had a rotary phone that took you an hour to call someone, especially if you messed up a number. The push-button phone was a godsend; no one enjoyed having to restart a phone number because they messed up one number. It's crazy to think about the evolution of the phone in just my lifetime. I think back to things like party lines and am even more amused. My mom hated party lines; she said she always had a nosy neighbor who listened into everything and reported it to her mom (my grandma), who lived just down the way. It's crazy to think about how much technology in general has changed, but then you think about something as simple as just the phone and the transformation it has undergone in what feels like such a short time.