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Showerthought: that dead payphone in my Ohio town had a voicemail inbox full of strangers' messages from 2004
I went back to my hometown in Ohio two weekends ago and walked past the old gas station on Main Street. The payphone out front is dead but the little screen was blinking, so I picked it up and heard a dial tone that led me to a voicemail greeting. It said I had 11 saved messages, and I sat there listening to a guy named Dale leave three messages about a tractor part and a woman reminding someone about a birthday dinner. I recorded the whole thing on my phone because it felt like finding a time capsule nobody meant to leave behind. The gas station owner said the phone company hasn't touched that box since 2006 and he just never bothered to rip it out. Now I want to go back with a real recorder and save everything before it dies for good. Has anyone else ever found a working message machine on a dead payphone, and did you keep the tape?
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paulc931d ago
Dale leaving three messages about a tractor part is the most Ohio thing I've ever heard and I love it. That payphone box sat there holding all those little pieces of people's lives for almost 20 years and nobody knew. Please go back and record it, that's the kind of thing that just vanishes one day and you can never get back.
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