Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Old School

Jen on the Edge asked about phones. Yes, I still have a landline. And when the power goes out, I plug in a phone that doesn't need electricity.




This is not a vintage phone...it has pushbuttons. (I originally bought it for my retro guest room, which is now occupied by Frank.) It does the job. It doesn't take messages, but you get a dial tone, which is important in an emergency.

We had a power outage a few weeks ago. A strong wind caused some power lines to go down which stared a brush fire, and the electric company no, the other one had to turn the power off before the fire dept could put out the fire.

In addition to the phone, I got out my alternate lighting devices.



And one of these.


Ever seen one of those? I made Frank use it. I think he's seen one before on camping trips.

I believe our power will be out again today, due to replacement of a pole. A neighbor came over last night and warned us...he had a letter from the electric company which we hadn't gotten. I've had problems ever since I tried their e-bills and recently called them to go back to paper. Apparently the e-bills cut off all communication whatsoever?

So wish us luck for our powerless day.

...UPDATE...1:00 and I still have power..

5 comments:

Jen on the Edge said...

I love that retro phone. Love. It.

Our landline is cordless phone, but we have a corded phone for when the power goes out. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as awesome as yours.

We do not, however, have an electric can opener. We are manual all the way.

Jen said...

How do you open tins if you don't use a tin opener? Am confused?

Anonymous said...

That's exactly how we do phones--an old school one keeps us connected when the power is out. Whoo-hoo!

Glennis said...

Good luck!!

We have our arsenal of lanterns, candles, and flashlights, since power outages from wind and rain are common here.

But we don't have a regular phone handy - there's probably a cheap one in a drawer somewhere, but I have no idea where.

Last outage, even our cells were down, the storm was so fierce.

Janet said...

My mother had one of those red candle stick holders! I think it was from her Mom and a PA Dutch thing.