Phones
The first phone I remember was the black rotary one that hung on the wall, above the stool, that held the bag from the bakery in my grandparents’ apartment. I loved dialing that phone. And if you got a 9, it was even more fun to dial because it took longer.
Yes, I remember the bag of rolls or cookies that rested underneath the phone, but my maternal grandmother let me partake in those treats once I ate my string beans. Sorry, the food memory took over for a second. I know I have shared in this column that my beloved maternal grandfather is the man who introduced me to the bowtie or “kichel” cookie. Sorry, back to phones.
The first phone I remember getting was that really cool-looking one where you saw all the mechanical doodads that made it work. It could have been a Swatch brand phone, but I also could be making that up. When I got one, I thought I had really made it. Of course, when I became a mature teenager, I had a very serious looking black phone with regular push buttons, and, of course, I have saved that phone.
Why am I saving it? Why not? My kids need something to throw away when they move me into the nursing home. And Strudel and her sisters like playing with it.
We aren’t going to get into answering machine phones and portable phones and all the other modern phones that brought us to the ridiculous place we are today. If you are an adult reading this, remember that first phone that you spoke to your friends on. When your parent would pick up the phone to make a call on it and you would yell, “Hang up! I am on the phone!” Insert “siblings” for the word parent and remember those times as well.
It was an easier, simpler time.
Let us fast forward to the first car phone my dad got because he was an ob/gyn and always on call. And the the first time we were parked in the city and someone broke into the car and sliced the phone off at the base. And then car phones turned into flip phones, and then flip phones turned into smart phones, and then smart phones turned back into flip phones but are now called kosher phones and now it is 2026.
Okay, we are all caught up.
Husband #1 and I have been walking around with our smart phones, never feeling very smart because we have never really learned how to use them to their full potential. The irony is, whenever we get that “storage is full” thing, one of our kids, who now all have kosher phones, figures out how to get us more storage. Because Husband #1 is not paying for more storage or iCloud space, whatever that is. iCloud — seriously? What cloud? What are you talking about? No clue.
The latest smart phone saga has been the great app problem of 2025. Neither of us can download apps. Husband #1 doesn’t know his Apple ID, and I get a message telling me that I don’t have the right software, but I cannot download the right software because I have no idea what they want from my life.
So when Alaska Airlines told me that all I have to do is download the app so I can get my boarding pass, I just burst into tears and threw the phone on the floor. For the record, that doesn’t help you get the app. That helps you test if the case that you spent $50 on something that really prevents your phone from breaking. For the record, it does.
But the time had come for Husband #1 and me to get new phones. Our phones were now almost six years old and almost as obsolete as we are.
Off to the AT&T store we went on Saturday night (Motzei shabbos for the Oreo crowd) and we bit the bullet to get new phones.
Every question the nice salesman asked us, we looked at him like we had just landed on earth for the first time. We each got a phone, we got a new Apple ID and password, we got new cases (because, of course, Apple is not going to make a new phone that doesn’t require the purchase of all new phone-related accoutrements).
And the best things of all? We got an AARP discount.
Boy, do I miss rotary phones.
Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck doesn’t understand why when she sets the timer, the new phone doesn’t tell her what time the alarm will go off. And now she has to figure it out by counting on her fingers. Stay in school, kids, stay in school.
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