Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Hello, it is Vintage Black Friday. My blogging friend, Jill of Gypsy Brocante, is throwing this party every Friday through November 27th. Today is the kick-off.

I realized that I don’t have a lot of black around the house. I will have to get creative in my search. Let me start with this:

I bought this lovely vintage phone for my husband a few years back. He often mentioned how he missed the rotary dial, the style and the heft of older phones (today’s phones have no weight to them.) I found this 1940’s Bell System phone that worked beautifully. By the way, my Dad was employed by Michigan Bell Telephone all his working life so I loved seeing the Bell System logo in my home once again.

Husband was delighted and we actually used the phone for several years. Eventually, it got put away as every call nowadays seems to involve pressing buttons and touch-tones. Last week, I dragged it out from its hiding place and considered using it again. I thought my husband would be thrilled. He saw the phone, oohed and aahed, and I plugged it in. I tried to dial my cell phone and kept getting a recording from the operator. Okay. Let’s try again. I started dialing my husband’s cell phone (I forgot how hard it was to use the rotary dial on these phones) and instead of a recording, I heard “911.” Oh no. I hung up. The phone rang immediately. It was the 911 operator. I apologized profusely and explained what happened with the phone – that I was just dialing and suddenly I had 911 on the line. He understood and said “Must have been a rotary dial.” I hung up, totally embarrassed.

Not 10 minutes later, my husband was cooking dinner and I heard him say “Ah, honey… there’s a police car coming up the drive.” I was mortified. I went out on the porch and saw a police officer walking up to the house. I explained once again my inadvertent 911 call. She took our names and address. She told me that I would be surprised how much this happened – that sometimes people are on their computers and somehow get through to 911. Of course, she was doing her job, following up in case something was really wrong and I was under duress. It wasn’t until later that I realized she must have been checking both of us out, making sure nothing was really wrong. Boy, was my face red!

All because I tried to dial the phone. Needless to say, we are now using it purely for decorative purposes.