My parents are disconnecting their landline this week and I have a slight feeling of loss.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's kind of weird, and yes a weird thing to get sentimental over. Also, it makes sense: they don't really use it anymore and both use their cell phones plenty. It's $35/month they'll be saving for something completely unnecessary.

However it's been around for almost 30 years and the part that bugs me is that the number, which I have had memorized for that long is going to lose all personal meaning and become just another random list of 10 numbers. I have neither my mom or my dad's number memorized. I'd post it here except it's not disconnected yet...maybe after that.

Yeah a weird thing to get sentimental over, but I can't shake it. I honestly even felt this way about them renovating the upstairs to include a new washer/dryer combo in an old bedroom meaning the old ones in the basement are now going to be sold (and they're not even 30 years old, more like 20 since the original batch were replaced) and how they renovated the upstairs bathroom to have a good shower better than the basement one also rendering that one mostly obsolete. It makes sense but it's just not the same house I grew up in, you know? But it makes sense as I said, and it'd be a silly thing to reject just for this weird sentimental thought.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Oh my goodness, you just brought back memories of the phone ringing and then the voice-caller-ID saying: "Call from.....C.V.S. Pharmacy."

[Virginiá]

It's kind of weird, and yes a weird thing to get sentimental over. Also, it makes sense: they don't really use it anymore and both use their cell phones plenty. It's $35/month they'll be saving for something completely unnecessary [...]

Honestly the landline-to-mobile saga for old people has always been a bit perplexing to me because some of the most tightfisted old people I've met would often have a landline they never used, in addition to their cellphones. It's like this this remnant of their past life they just couldn't conceive of getting rid of.

I think people spend so long using this incredibly important thing and then one day it's just not relevant anymore but it takes a long time for that to actually sink in.

[fhtagn]

I still remember the home phone number we used since we first moved to Virginia, and we got rid of that line in 2010.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

It's kind of weird, and yes a weird thing to get sentimental over. Also, it makes sense: they don't really use it anymore and both use their cell phones plenty. It's $35/month they'll be saving for something completely unnecessary [...]

Honestly the landline-to-mobile saga for old people has always been a bit perplexing to me because some of the most tightfisted old people I've met would often have a landline they never used, in addition to their cellphones. It's like this this remnant of their past life they just couldn't conceive of getting rid of.

I think people spend so long using this incredibly important thing and then one day it's just relevant anymore but it takes a long time for that to actually sink in.

Yeah, my parents still have theirs and I doubt they’ll get rid of it unless support is dropped. They even have an old touchtone phone so they can call if the power goes out.

[GeorgiaModerate]

My mother kept her landline because it would stay up during power outages, which were not uncommon where she lived, and because she had the number for decades, ever since the days when the phone exchanges had names (as in the old song "Beechwood 4-5789", where the first two letters "BE" represented the corresponding numbers on the dial, so the actual number was 234-5789).  With a true landline, the small amount of power needed is carried on the phone lines themselves.  For VoIP "landlines" this isn't true, since it depends on internet service that's likely to be down in a power outage.

[Mr. Smith]

My Dad still has two landlines, one of which he doesn't even use much anymore.