How people used to answer their phones and me on the beach looking like my grandmother

dosfamily-jenny

Today I want to tell you about some moments of my life when I´ve used a phone. I promise it will be just as exciting as it sounds. (But the truth is that all this post is is a reason for me to show you this photo of me (and Jens) that my sister took.

 

The story starts in the middle of a phone call with mom.

Oh my gosh mom! did you see how much I looked like grandma yesterday at the beach?!”
“Oh yes I did and yes you looked exactly like her”

I really prefer to correspond with people via text or mail. For me it´s just easier. I like having plans made by text. Then I can always go back to see the “when, what, how” of things that have been planed.

My mother has a cell phone, it´s even a smart one. So we have all sorts of options for communications nowadays. But mom is probably the only one I still call to talk to.

This is how she answers their phone:
“Brandt” (with a distinct rolling Rrr, her dialect does that to her way of speaking)
She never says the classic “Hello” or the popular first name pick up, in her case:  “Doris”. She always answers with our family name. “Brandt”. Living at home we all did.

Lots of my childhood friends answered their phones with their actual phone number, like this:
“33038” (a friend of mine 3 houses down on my street)
I tried incorporating this into our family routine. “33091” But it did not stick.
The few times I tried it out when our phone rang people thought they had dialed the wrong number.
“Oh sorry, I thought this was the Brandt house” they hung up before I could tell them that it was.

Back then we used to fantasize about what phones would be like in the future (now). What if you could look at the person you were talking to? (we had seen something like that in Back to the future). For us this was an extra thrilling thought because both my older siblings had moved to Nebraska then and we missed them a lot. Little did we know that not only would there be Skype and Facetime but it would also be free. Wowzers. Mom used to talk so fast on the phone with Nebraska (Battle Creek) knowing the price per minute was sky high.

I love that mom has a smart phone, often I see things and think “Oh mom is gonna love this” -then take a picture and send it to her.

Apparently my sister feels the same way.
When I hooked up with her on the beach the other day she bursts out:

Jesus Jenny you look just like Valborg” (our grandmother on our moms side)
“I have to take a picture of you and show mom”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Comments

Join the discussion and tell us your opinion.

avatar
Helena
August 23, 2014 at 11:57

Å, vilket roligt sammanträffande att du skriver om att svara i telefonen med telefonnummer. Vi pratade om det bara häromdagen och jag sa att jag kanske borde börja svara så i mobilen för nostalgins skull. Och för att det vore roligt eftersom numret är så långt. Det hela kom i alla fall på tal för att vi är på väg att skaffa hemtelefon. Känner en orimlig pepp inför det!

(PS snygg kepa!)

avatar
Jenny Brandt
August 23, 2014 at 13:22
– In reply to: Helena

Helena! Det är så skoj när sånt sker. Ja och tänk så jobbigt att slå dagens långa nummer på en sån där snurr-ring som vissa telefoner har. Lycka till med er nya telefonsituation.