Practically Extinct

DCist posed a random question today: “Are landlines officially antiques?” To be honest, I don’t really care, but the headline reminded me of a moment of hilarity playing Taboo with my family, and in the interest of making fun of my mom, I thought I’d share it here.

It was my turn, and the off-limits word was payphone. In the frenzy of shouting descriptors at my team, I exclaimed, “practically extinct!” My mom, in a similarly worked-up state that only board games can inflict, shouted her response: “Dinosaurs!” At which point Noah fell off the couch laughing at the fact that my mom thought dinosaurs are merely “practically” extinct. “I haven’t seen any dinosaurs in awhile!” he managed to say, still giggling—er, guffawing? is that more masculine, Noah?—on the floor.

And though I don’t care much whether landlines are antiques, I do care about the fate of payphones. They’re so old-fashioned and charming! Like, one time in high school I noticed a missed call from a number that looked oddly familiar, so I called it back. A guy I knew from school answered, sounding really confused. Turns out it was a pay phone at the local Village Inn my friends and I pretty much lived at through our adolescence (give us a break; it was the Midwest). This guy had been walking by, decided to answer the ringing pay phone, and oddly enough, it was someone he knew (me). So he went and fetched my friends, who had called me from the pay phone earlier.

And to think, pay phones are practically extinct. What a sad thing, indeed. (Also, I realize I’m like five years behind the curve on this “breaking” trend. Maybe tomorrow I’ll cover that thing called an iPod so popular these days.)

Photo via Flickr