In 2017, payphones are no longer an option at all. The phones at the gas stations are long gone. The community center phone, too. We just don’t need them anymore. Not because our need to communicate has dissipated, but because we’ve long replaced the solitary payphone with individual pocket-sized devices that can call home in an instant. These days I wonder how many kids even know their parents’ phone numbers by heart.
My daughter will never know what it’s like to stand in the movie theater, debating between Sour Patch Kids and Red Vines, calculating in her head how much she can purchase while still leaving money left over to make that call home for a ride. She will never stand beside the payphone after encountering the answering machine and debating: Are they already on their way? Should I hotfoot it back to the theater? Or should I beg a quarter off my best friend and try again?
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