The nearest pay phone.

[luvmytoolz]

I always remember a house I lived in when a teenager, we couldn't work out why the gas stove didn't work, until a guy from the gas company turned up one day to collect the coins from a coin operated meter in a cupboard near the oven!

Never even knew this sort of thing existed, I thought that was bizarrely clever!

 

[six-point socket II]

Didn't even know something like that existed. A quick search, and now I'm deep diving into a world of beautifully designed coin operated gas meters, and it looks like there were even coin operated electric meters.

Thank you!

(And I thought the pre-paid meters were something of this day and age, utilities will force on you if you're constantly late with payments/ have extensive outstanding payments ... In some parts of Germany with poor communities they are sadly a pretty common sighting, and the people need to keep a balance on a key that they put into the meter and have to charge that at the utility's office with money ... Very humiliating, I think.)

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[MikeGE]

The only phone booths I see now, one in my town and another in the next, have been converted to book exchanges.

 

[peter halle]

Speaking of coin operated items, when we first moved to Virginia in 1971 there were coin operated stalls in the mens room in case you needed to sit down and ...  Lucky I never had to do that there 'cause I never had a coin in my pocket.

Peter

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Speaking of coin operated items, when we first moved to Virginia in 1971 there were coin operated stalls in the mens room in case you needed to sit down and ...  Lucky I never had to do that there 'cause I never had a coin in my pocket.

Peter

I remember those too. I bet cooler heads prevailed on this move. How many "accidents" happened, while someone didn't have change? I'm sure it just became "not worth the hassle" for a few quarters.

 

[luvmytoolz]

Speaking of coin operated items, when we first moved to Virginia in 1971 there were coin operated stalls in the mens room in case you needed to sit down and ...  Lucky I never had to do that there 'cause I never had a coin in my pocket.

Peter

I remember when me and my mates would wag school to sneak into the cinemas, the toilets at the main hub Flinders St Station in Melb had coin operated stalls too!

At one time there were also really old toilet kiosks I guess you'd call them on a few streets around the city that were converted to take coins.

Wow how things have changed! I reckon if you took kids from now and dumped them in some of the old timelines, apart from the massive technology changes, it'd be like visiting an alien planet to them! Smoking in hospitals and restaurants as a norm, paying to cross the bridge or go to the toilet, having the daily beers during lunch at work, standing on the footrail on the outside of the tram as it was full, etc.

Fun times!

 

[BarneyD]

If you travel the US Interstates, before every exit you'll see signs that say "Food, Phone, Gas, Camping" or similar. Now I wonder if there's actually a pay phone nearby or whether they're too lazy to change the signs. 

 

[Cheese]

If you travel the US Interstates, before every exit you'll see signs that say "Food, Phone, Gas, Camping" or similar. Now I wonder if there's actually a pay phone nearby or whether they're too lazy to change the signs.

It's probably too expensive...cheaper & easier to just cover up the 'Phone" part. I once heard what one of those Interstate signs cost and I was stunned...3M Scotchlite doesn't come cheap.  [smile]

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Nothing 3M comes cheap. They make the good stuff that the copycats try to duplicate.

If you travel the US Interstates, before every exit you'll see signs that say "Food, Phone, Gas, Camping" or similar. Now I wonder if there's actually a pay phone nearby or whether they're too lazy to change the signs. 

The ones around here have gotten to the point where they are changeable, right where they stand.
Instead of just "food", they name the restaurants, with logo placards, which can be updated. I assume they pay some kind of fee for that? since it's usually only a few of the options available.