Phones and phone accessories are becoming a recurring theme here on the Braid, apparently -- quite by coincidence. Had a conversation with someone today about how, beyond the area code, no one knows where anyone is anymore because everyone has cell phones with prefixes that aren't married to a specific location.

Yeah, I've had a couple of recent experiences where I read someone's phone number and saw the prefix from a town I used to live in, and thought, "Oh man. I actually know where on a map that phone is located." And then I thought, "Oh, how quaint."

'Cause no one has land lines anymore, or if they do, they don't give out the number -- the land line is for, I don't know, dial-up Internet? (Oh, how quaint.)

My current phone made the recent move with me from one end of the Seacoast to the other, and I didn't have to call a phone company once. And what's more, it didn't even strike me as odd, or anything to spend energy thinking about.

Not that we've been geographically tied via telephonic umbilical cord for some time now, thanks to the cell phone. For the last decade or so, we've been able to call from anywhere (well, anywhere you can get more than one bar) without anyone needing to know if we were where actually where we were supposed to be.

This gradual disappearance of the land line takes that to the next level.
I have not yet arrived at a profound insight to share with you all about this development in human communication. I'm sure there's one somewhere, though.

There's a little museum (yes, a quaint one) in Bryant Pond, Maine, near where I spent my childhood summers, that houses the last of the crank phones.

I wonder where they'll put the last land line.