Auld Lang Syne, anyone?

[firecat]

Recycling an old post from Facebook:

"RT @ ThatEricAlper: Without revealing your actual age, what something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn't understand?"

Here’s my entry. I’ve heard that reading the time on an analog clock is no longer a universal skill. So I think some young people would find it hard to understand where the phrase “watch my six” comes from.

(This entry brought to you by Faith Hunter’s Shining Smith series, a post-apocalyptic story in which a woman infected by mesmerizing nanobots runs a junkyard with the help of a clowder of sentient, telepathic cats. She says it a lot in combat situations…not to the cats though.)

Comments

[greghousesgf]

I can specifically remember using a pencil to dial a rotary phone so I didn't screw up my nail polish.

[necturus]

I learned to dial a phone with just the hook switch: one tap for 1, two taps for 2, etc. Zero was ten taps.

Back in the day, it was common for large institutions to put locks on the dials of phones they didn't want you to use. The lock was always positioned so you could dial 1111 or 2222 and get campus security, but you couldn't get an outside line, unless you knew how to dial with the hook switch.