Huh. Maybe my grandparents just liked theirs. That’s really surprising. I assumed people over, say, 23 would have at least seen one and played with one. I’m 25, and I had regular access to one when I was a kid–I assumed anyone older than me would have at least had older relatives with them.
I’m 30 and we had a couple of them in my house until I was about 10.
But the re-dialing to try to get concert tickets off a radio station - that was sheer hell. (41, and we had a couple of rotary phones. Heck, I had one myself for the longest time.)
My old fart revelation came a couple of years ago, when I had to start replacing things I had bought for the house (sheets, towels, toaster, etc.) I still think I’m in set up a household mode, and here I am in replace worn out things for my household. 
As I remember it, the way to work some of the old phone on radio give aways was to predial except for the last digit. Keep that one at the top of the finger pull and when the announcer said, “And now…” you released the number. Sometimes it worked.
I’m old enough to remember Jerry Seinfeld making this joke about portable phones 15 years ago.
Dude, you’re old.
I wanna hear more about this dude tying up his girlfriend. a LOT more!
If you’re on LJ, friend me. Eventually you’ll work your way in to my “insiders” group that gets to read those posts. 
Heh. I have a big ol’ scratch on my forehead from peeling my t-shirt off without removing my glasses. You KNOW why I didn’t remove my glasses, right?
I’m so old that I forgot he made that joke. The flipping it shut part was all me, though.
Last week I, again, lost track of my glasses. As I was looking for them I tried to make sure I hadn’t done something really stupid. That led to this laughing comment from my daughter:
“Mom, did you just feel the top of your head?”
I’ve taken to doing that, just to try not to make a complete fool of myself running around the house looking for something that’s right there riding around with me. And the really goofy part of it is, I almost never put them up there. They get caught in my hair. But I remember my mother.
You realize, of course, that in twenty years, the pay phone itself will have gone completely by the wayside, and will have as much relevance to modern day-to-day life as stegosaurus bait, and that it will be an example of the weird stuff your children will be telling their kids they saw when they were young.
My dad said his moment was when they started playing Metamucil ads on the radio stations he liked. The scary part is he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than I am now when that happened. sigh I miss him.
I don’t remember having a rotary phone but I remember using them a few times. I’m 32.
I have an analog watch. I’m rather fond of it. Paid quite a bit of dough for it when on a cruise in the Carribean.
Course, the hands are attached to stepper motors and it does a TON of stuff, but it’s still analog.
Hmmm. Old. I was young a little bit, but I’ll be old a Loooooooong time. Examples:
-listening to the coffee girls go through the trails and tirbulations of dating in your twenties. Girl, when you’re talking about a guy and you squeak…that’s called a ‘tell’, if he’s been aroudn the block a time or two, he’ll know.
-realizing that the black an white TV you watched in your parents bedroom as a kid was one of a progression of TV’s, with the newest one being in the family room, the next oldest in the Parents bedroom and the next oldest being in your room (or the guest room). Our house now has three generations of primary TVs, sent out to pasture.
I’ve learned how to machine metal on a 1962 South Bend Lathe. I read about the processes’ in the definitive ‘How to Run a Lathe’, published in 1944. The first edition was published in 1912. Old people on olden days knew some pretty cool stuff.
-My 5 year old son says ‘I know millions and MILLIONS of songs’. I ask ‘How many IS that, exactly?’ He says ‘sixty’.
Wait until they start mentioning their grandfather’s age and he is younger than you. That stings.
I’m not old yet, but I’ve got a good start on it. At home we had one black phone with a dial permanently wired to the wall for our party line. You might pick up the phone to make a call and the other person would be using it, but for us it was rare. Dad’s desk phone at work was so old that the ringer was in a separate box mounted on the wall. The cash register at his store was manual, and you had to calculate and enter the sales tax yourself. I remember when bankcards first started and they were all local (the one in St. Louis was called BankMate); there weren’t national cards like VISA or MasterCard.
My nephews were totally amazed the first time they saw my pencil sharpener; I was bemused by their reaction. It’s just an old Boston® sharpener; a handcrank model on a stand with a shavings bin. They’d never seen one and they’re teenagers. They proceeded to sharpen several pencils each, with great glee. Wierd. And they were stunned to learn that an old 4000-pound car could come without power steering. (That’s why it has a 17" steering wheel.) That steering column? It’s a solid shaft of metal all the way from the front wheels, pointed straight at your chest, no collapsing shaft here. No seatbelts, either, boys…s-c-a-a-a-r-y! :eek:
I think the joke that gets lost is that in 1989, that kind of phone booth was already a bit old-fashioned (cf. Superman (1978)). It’s like the Doctor (who?) traveling through time and space in a police call box - a lot like that.
Stole my post re party lines - I grew up with them.
My contribution?
You know you’re old when you’re older than the Chief Justice of the United States.
I just did this, too. My washing machine broke down. I was telling my daughter and she said, “Well, how old is it?” I told her it wasn’t that old at all - it was five years old when we moved in, it was practically new. “Uh, Mom, how long have we lived here?” :smack:17 years! (And, bless it’s little agitator, all it needed was a couple of new belts underneath that we easily changed ourselves and it’s back in business)
You 30-somethings thinking you’re old - HA! Ya wanna know what’s depressing? When you look at the year of birth required to buy a pack of cigarettes and it’s two years less than your oldest child’s age - and I was 29 when I had her!!
We had black and white tv when I was a kid - color wasn’t invented. Rotary phone - check. I was in my 20’s when they invented VCR’s and I remember signing up for cable TV that became available in my city - -after I got back from my honeymoon.
We had albums and my first car had an 8-track player. Cassettes were considered way cool. You had a choice of VHS or BETA tapes for the VCR’s when they finally came round. We actually had to WAIT a year to see Christmas shows and the Wizard of OZ and honestly I miss that experience so much. It was a BIG DEAL when Rudolph was coming on - you made sure to be in front of the TV to get your fix for the year. I was in college when PONG was invented!
Seriously, I’m only 49. When I think of all the changes in just the last 20-25 years, it’s unbelievable. Can’t even imagine what the next 20 years will bring and how old I’ll feel then.
Every one gets older, we start from the time we are born. I am older than I was yesterday,so is my 1 year old great grand child. To me older means you are still living and the ER on old means you can still be helped in the ER. After you are Dead they can say you were Old! The one with the most years wins. I have 2 years until I am 80 and wouldn’t change a thing!
Monavis