October 28, 2008

FarmWife Keeps Answering & rants a bit.

Sarah @ Ordinary Days has secretly slipped another question in just under the wire for Ask FarmWife Day. Do you still have a home phone? I hear they are becoming a thing of the past with cell phones everywhere.


Wanna' know something really shocking? I don't have a cell phone. Yes, America, you read correctly. I am practically living in the dark ages (did you know that as of Nov. '07, 82% of Americans owned a cell phone?). I have no cell phone & a dial-up Internet connection. Have I mentioned that we have yet to invest in those fabulous things known as forks? Heck, 'round here we just eat with our fingers.


No, really, no cell phone. Husband has On Star in Hank (his truck) because it came free for the first year. We spent $19 to get him enough minutes to keep the calling option working for the year as well. I had a TracFone but that turned out to be useless. Let me walk you through it:


We bought one so I'd have something with me while driving the country roads with small children. Town is 15 miles away & I really don't want to hoof it with the FarmHands in tow if I break down. Actually, Little BIL gave us one he bought while he was home for a month from Korea. We transferred it to my name & off I went. The first time I was in town I realized I had no signal. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.


So I called TracFone to explain my dilemma. After spending 20 minutes trying to explain to someone who spoke very broken English that everyone else had signal in town but I did not, he finally called in his supervisor. The supervisor suggestion? The next time you are in town, call us and we will see what we can do to establish a signal. Um....with what shall I call you, Dear TracFone, Dear Trac Fone? With what shall I call you, Dear TracFone, with what?


Add to that the fact that even the biggest and best of cell phones only get 1-2 bars at my house (on a good day), and we are not really candidates for being a wireless-only household (one in six families are wireless only now). Text all you want 'round here, but don't expect to call & talk at anyone with one of them newfangled thangs.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

Well, you know the huge downside to cell phones was evident in my kid's 1st grade classroom. The kids with no house phones? They are slower to learn their phone numbers. The only kids stumbling were the ones with cellonly. And I will keep my landline because it will be a cold dark day when I let my kids wander around chatting on my iPhone.

BTW, my house is a cell phone black hole. I get very little signal in my house.

Kork said...

I'm with Farmie on this one...if I didn't have a business that was started BC (before children) for which I used my cell phone, I'd throw the thing out the window of my car while driving at high speeds.

As for going wireless? Ummmm...only if you don't want 9-1-1 to be able to find you when you fall out of an apple tree, or your kid tumbles down a full flight of stairs onto concrete and breaks his leg (not to my kid, but I know someone)...

My brother in CA had a wireless house for awhile until he realized that when he and SIL were away, the kids had no phone whatsoever, and when they did VOIP, the kids had no 9-1-1...yeah...

And Farmie - forks are overrated...just ask Captain Chaos...