Guys your internets and your phones are merging. BT and EE are about to join forces and apparently so are Sky and O2. Obviously this being 2015, the number of you that actually have landlines in your house that are used for anything other than connecting your wifi thingamy to the interwebs are few and far between but if mobile providers and landline providers become the same thing does that mean landlines are going to be officially over? Like, even for your parents??
Here's a few things we remember about that magical time when your mobile relied on credit so you relied on your parents' landline.
Novelty phones were the Christmas gift you never got
Obviously, the ultimate win was the Juno burger phone even though, WTF Juno it was 2007, the iPhone had launched, why were you still using a landline? See also phones in the shape of lips, the vintage retro one with the rotary dial or OMG this one. Obviously you just had to use whatever your parents had but still, a girl could dream.
A second line was your main obsession
OBVIOUSLY only the super rich and most popular girls (funny how those two came hand in hand) were the hallowed owners of a second line, which was mega unfairs because hey, you had people to call too, sometimes. Eventually your parents probably relented and let you get a phone (same line) in your room but that still meant you had to put up with waiting for your mum to finish chatting to Aunty Muriel about Aunty Sarah and developed super slick hearing to detect even the tiniest of clicks when your pervert little brother picked up the other phone to listen in on your admittedly very saucy conversation about Kavanagh.
Trying to use the phone at the same time as the internet
The phone was pretty much yours, because let's face it who could your OMG SO LAME family have to talk to?, until you discovered MSN Messenger. And so began the age old problem of figuring whether your wanted to chat your friend on the phone or online since both definitely weren't an option. It was bascially Sophie's Choice. Plus, that dial up internet sound when you picked up the phone? FFS.
Magic phone hacks were part of your everyday life
1471, call waiting, 141, three way dialing... what sorcery was this? Hell, I don't even know how to talk to two separate people on my iPhone 6 now and yet at some point in my life I knew how to pick up a landline, call Sarah Gregson, dial in Lisa Culpepper then switch over to Samantha Carter who was on hold from before. Wizardry I tell you.
You could actually remember stuff
Can still remember my best friend’s number from when I was 13. It’s imprinted in my brain for ever and ever. These days though, I don’t even know my own; let alone someone else’s.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.