It was the end of an era this week when my mum rang on her old-school phone to tell me her landline of 49 years was being disconnected.
The phone company was surely taking the mickey out of an elderly lady by charging her 80 bucks every three months to rent the landline.
Mum does not use broadband or even Wi-Fi.
So, it is a case of sayonara to our saviour of a phone line: 3343 3440.
How many numbers can you still rattle off the top of your head from back in the day?
I mean, many of us know Jenny’s number from that song 867 5309 by Tommy Tutone.
It is incredible how many of us can still recall landlines.
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They were a huge part of our fabric of growing up, and 3343 3440 clocked up some serious ‘frequent flyer’ points over the decades.
I would ring my grandma most nights at 6pm to check in and check on her.
I still miss that nightly call.
All the grandkids always rang her to cheer on Queensland just before the game on State of Origin nights.
Then as I got older at school, friends would ring on 3343 3440 to discuss the important events of the day such as the fact George Georgiou wrote a love note to Rebecca Smith – juicy stuff that my days revolved around.
And then when I was at university, my first boyfriend would have to call and get past mum to speak to me as I sat on the floor with the phone cord twisted so far away and around the corner in the hope no one could hear my conversation.
When my sister went overseas, we huddled around that phone when she called us all the way from Egypt and we thought she was the fanciest person in the universe.
When I finally went overseas, the phone was my hero to reach my real hero: my mother.
My bestie and I and all our clueless bravado went to Las Vegas for the first time in our 20s and we had everything we owned stolen, including our passports and money.
I rang sobbing and afraid from the Vegas police station and reversed the phone charges to mum.
When my husband proposed, we rang together to tell her the good news and to hear her reply with: “Are you sure? My daughter has a lot of debt.”
Thanks, mum!
They were simpler times, when we did not have to charge a phone and did not have it next to us while we slept.
Vale, 3343 3440.
You were so good to us.
Sami Muirhead is a radio announcer, blogger and commentator. For more from Sami, tune into Mix FM.
