While walking thru the lobby of the Grand Californian Hotel at Disneyland (where my MIL and SIL and a gaggle of cousins are staying this week while they visit from Chicago) the kids spotted this rare and odd looking device. It was immediately met with “Mom? What is THAT?” . So I explained “Well, kiddos that is a TEL-E-PHONE” from the olden days”. They looked at me blankly and and blinked in disbelief. “Where are the buttons? Where is the screen?” …so right there in the lobby I had to give a group of pre-teens a lesson on rotary dialing telephones. Hysterically this was very entertaining to them. Of course these phones are the house phones in the hotel…so in our ‘practice’ dialing we may or may not have crank called a few rooms completely on purpose by mistake. That might have upped the entertainment value as well.
Bravo to Disney for being all historical and vintage and using ANTIQUES in their decor.
You know that Disney.
Always teaching my kids something.
Like crank calling.
I blame Mickey.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Love those phones! I am almost positive my kids have NEVER seen a rotary phone. Sad.
Bit of trivia: I own a similar phone. It was my business phone for my store. However, I had a wall-mounted touch-tone bypass next to it so I could do voice mail and stuff.
YES, I chose the phone on purpose, being all retro and cool like that. NO, it wasn’t because I’m a bumpkin. Well maybe a little.
Whoever thought you’d be giving a history lesson on something you used as a kid!? We had a rotary phone and our first touch tone was one of those ones that gave out the rotary pulses and took just as long to dial.