Phone 911..there's a robbery!

There is a lovely couple living near Cincinnati, in Montgomery, Ohio who are rather, shall we say, "set in their ways"? They have owned the same yellow rotary phone hanging in their kitchen since Eisenhauer was in office. It is one step above Aunt Bee cranking the handle and asking Mable the operator for a connectin to Lloyd, the barber.
Finally, their daughter convinced them, after they had some issues with static on the line, to buy a new phone. Upon further review (can you tell by my phrasing that it's football season?) the facts show that they had been renting this phone that should be in some museum for kids to ask their parents what it is ~ for $21.95/month. Their dear old phone company has made a ton of money over the past umpteen years. (They didn't want to add up the lost money on rental as it might upset their tummies)

Coincidentally, I found this article on the internet...please make sure your loved ones are not in the same predicament!

Widow Rented Rotary Phone for 42 Years

A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now outdated phone.
Ester Strogen, 82, of Canton, first leased two black rotary phones — the kind whose round dial is moved manually with your finger — in the 1960s. Back then, the technology was new and owning telephones was unaffordable for most people.

Until two months ago, Strogen was still paying AT&T to use the phones — $29.10 a month.
New Jersey-based Lucent Technologies, a spinoff of AT&T that manages the residential leasing service, said customers were given the choice option to opt out of renting in 1985. The number of customers leasing phones dropped from 40 million nationwide to about 750,000 today, he said.
"We will continue to lease sets as long as there is a demand for them," Skalko said.

Strogen says she's not a big fan of her new push-button phone.
"I'd like to have my rotary back," she said. "I like that better."


SIGH....Now I'm wondering if she still has dial-up internet service?