By Carissa Rogers for GalTime.com
Should you keep your landline?We're about to be a family of FOUR cell phones.
And yet, we still have an old school landline phone (complete with cassette tape answering machine). The main reason is the 911 conundrum. What if? What if there's an emergency and my little boy can't tell the operator what our address is? What if I'm all alone... choking on cherry pits… and can only dial the number but can't speak? What if…
You get the picture.
But here's the thing. I am SICK AND TIRED of all the telemarkers, political polls and random (drive-me-insane) calls all the time on the landline. It's gotten so bad we NEVER answer the land line. When it rings I holler: DON'T ANSWER THAT, THEY CALLED 3 TIMES ALREADY!
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So I did what everyone does.
I asked Facebook what to do!
And oh my gosh. There was an avalanche on my page!
People feel very strongly about this issue. I had no idea.
Roughly half of the 35 people who weighed in on my VERY un-scientific poll do NOT have a landline and do NOT miss it.
My childhood friend who is a 911 operator did make a valid point though:
"Just make sure all of your kids know your address during an emergency. When calling 911 using a landline, the address shows up on the 911 operators screen. With a cellphone only the GPS coordinates show up and they are not always 100 percent accurate and oddly enough people can't always remember their address during an emergency situation and sometimes they can't talk at all."
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YIKES.
Plus my husband reminded me of the Fax issue.
How DO you fax via a cell phone I wonder? Is there an app for that?
When it comes right down to it, you know why we keep the dang thing?
Because we got roped into a 2 year contract with our phone/Internet/cable company.
And that just might be the dumbest reason so far.
(I was totally kidding about the cassette tape part. We ARE in the 21st century after all.)
Do you still have a landline? Why or why not?
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