Alright! Fun story time.
So, directly across the street from my house, there were two pay phones. You could call them, but they wouldn’t ring out loud.
I had both of them on speed dial and when someone would pull up I’d hit one of the two buttons and hope I got the right one. When I did, I’d prank the person. Usually it was just standard. “911, what’s your emergency?” “Oh! I, uh, I’m on a pay phone. I didn’t mean to call the 911.” “SIR! We get prank calls from this number constantly. You stay where you are! An officer will be there to file a report. If leave, you risk being arrested. The owner of the store has a camera on that phone and we will find you!”
They’d wait around sometimes. Most of the time they’d leave. My friends and I would be on the floor laughing.
As fun as that was, nothing ever topped this one.
A girl pulled up to the phone in the middle of the night and tried to make a call. I hit the speed dial button but I got the wrong one. She left the phone, walked over to the side of the store, pulled her pants down and pissed on the side of the building. I dialed the phone she was previously on and prayed she’d pick it up again. She did! I heard her dial a number, and I started breathing heavy on the phone. She said, “Hello, someone on there?” I replied in a deep, growly voice, “Hey. You forgot to wipe.”
She slammed the phone on the receiver, looked around frantically, and hopped in her car and peeled out.
My brother laughed like a damn donkey and nearly passed out. I couldn’t breathe laughing because of how hard he was laughing. It truly was an amazing moment in my life.
You’re a legend.
/r/thathappened
I remember doing this at my town’s movie theater!
Woah! Massive doxxing
Pft show me where they’re at on Google maps…
I believe it is approximately here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/w2dmLbTR9qwWZHoq9
That area has the last working payphone by Verizon in New Hampshire.
I can find it for you on Rand McNally.
Everything that was in the phone book is still public record, and searchable online or by phone, unless you pay for an unlisted number.
There are still a few active payphones still around here! I haven’t seen a phone book in over a decade at least though lol
They were big in Korea until recently because conscripted soldiers couldn’t bring their phones with them
They still have a lot of payphones in the city. I use them to call people and scream death threats at.
Must be the only remaining use case.
Which, looking at it from a 21st century perspective I’d be terrified if someone just put my god damn address in a book most people kept lying around. I’m still pissed at Snapchat for sharing my live gps location with my contacts.
It wasn’t really that bad.
They only had the numbers of local people and the phone book would just give you name, address and phone number. If you’re the Terminator and there happen to be 3 Sarah Connors in the phone book, too bad, you’ve got to visit all 3 of them. You could ask to have your number unlisted and many people did, particularly celebrities. Nobody had an on-line presence so the only way people would even know the name of most people was if you told them.
In case you weren’t aware, that information is still public, but now it’s online.
Edit: just looked myself up on whitepages, and it not only shows my full address, but all my previous addresses too.
I think Elrond used those
They still do, though at a much smaller form factor and scale. The ones i have cover a 3-5 county area
