Payphones
There are any number of reasons you might be using a payphone and most of them have to do with unimaginative screenwriters.
Just The Facts
- Payphones are a thing of the past
- Homeless people miss getting to overhear your conversations on the payphone they sleep behind.
- If you see someone talking on a payphone, you should try to keep them talking until the police can triangulate their location.
10 Things Using Payphone Say about You
Payphones were the first casualty of the great mobile boom of the past 10 years. As recently as 1994, every single commercial break contained Carrot Top using the "Head-On" school of advertising to convince you to dial down the middle, and use 1-800-CALL-ATT whenever you didn't have a quarter.
Because they're presumably a pain in the ass to remove, payphones are still out there. Occasionally, you'll even see someone using a payphone. When this happens, you can immediately assume one or more of the following things about them:
5. They are tourists from a foreign country or the year 1987. (3%)
4. They are paranoid enough to brag about "staying off the grid," yet not paranoid enough to realize that with a total of 5 payphone conversations taking place at any given time, the FBI could easily monitor them all. (4%)
3. They are looking for a vintage 1994 case of the flu to go with their vintage sneakers. (10%)
2. They like to think of themselves as non-conformists, the less ego-deflating way of saying "unemployed." (13%)
1. They are urinating. (70%)
The usual payphones I have seen these days are those ones that allow you to make discount overseas calls, I believe you need a special card or something to use it.
ReplyI haven't seen a payphone in years.
ReplyRecently saw what looked like a human turd (I'm no master of scat, but it looked like it) in a payphone. Naaaaasty.
ReplyWait, you forgot something in your list of payphone users! What about the people who have totally sick battle royals with the handsets? I mean, wait...no...I totally don't do that, you must be hearing things...
Replypshhhaha they also start to spin when the gibson is getting overloaded by zero cool
Reply"They are looking for a vintage 1994 case of the flu to go with their vintage sneakers." I lol'd at that. :)
Replymy school still forces us to use the payphone.
ReplyI worked at a gas station in high school with a payphone out in front. We used to piss on/put all sorts of garbage all over it. Then when people would walk by, call it. I don't remember one person who could resist the mystery of a ringing payphone.
ReplyI was lost in the country a couple years ago and my phone wasn't getting a signal so I used an old payphone at a creepy gas station with plyboard walls..I think that might have been the last time I saw one.
Replyhahaha a couple days ago I went to work and left my cell phone at home. When I was on my way back, my car decided to break a water hose. So without my trusty cell phone, I had to walk 10 minutes to the closest shopping strip to "try to find a working payphone". To my(not so much) surprise none were working. So I went my way to the next shopping strip(probably a 45 min. walk) but luckily on the way I found a gas station with a working payphone in the front(now I was really surprised xD). After calling my mechanic and hanging the phone I noticed that everybody at the gas station was looking at me suspiciously. Man that was one of the most embarrassing moments ever. So I did what any person would do in such situation, I rolled my eyes and discretely whistled my way out of there lol.
ReplyCould you not have borrowed someone else's 'cell'..?
Or your cellphone died? Like mine did last weekend (yeah, yeah, I should have charged it the previous night, blah blah.) And why would someone urinate while talking on a payphone? Is that another obscure reference from 20 years ago that I forgot by now?
Replyno, no... they're urinating ON the payphone. that's what i do, anyway
I see a lot of Mexicans using the one payphone in town. It's probably cheaper to call Mexico with a calling card than buying a cell phone.
ReplyThis fricken sucks, its worse than that one about skateboarding.........
ReplyI used a pay phone once when my cell got stolen. I held it in a tissue, at least an inch away from my head.
ReplyI don't use a cell phone because I haven't payed my verizon bill since late 2009, I also don't own a home phone. Occasionally I use a working phone booth or a courtesy phone.
ReplyUmm, I only see 5 things a payphone says about you...
ReplyCongrats, you've officially passed Counting Numbers 101, something the writer of that list failed at...
Payphone? Time Travel?
ReplyYou're kidding! Police phone boxes, I get, but not pay phones.
Pfft. The Doctor would be ashamed.
That refers to the time travel phone booth in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, not the TARDIS
I tried to use a payphone the other day because I forgot my cell phone. Much to my surprise the payphone hadn't been operational for years.
ReplyI remember after deregulation, attempting to use a payphone to actually use the 1-800-call-collect. Imagine my suprise when the phone asked for 25 cents. Then of course prices just to use a payphone started to go up. Now its hard to even find one (although I do know one about 5 miles away, on the chance my cell and voip are both down).
ReplyYou for got about paging a drug dealer, man in the 90's thats what it was about paging up your guy from a pay phone and putting 420 911 after your page so dude knew what was up!
Replythat was totally my first thought when I saw this! I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned, obviously this person doesn't live around near Vallejo or Oakland Ca.