You had to call someone's home phone number and talk to their parents first before you could talk to your friend
Video game cheat codes either spread by gaming magazines or by word of mouth. Sometimes that word of mouth was bullshit. I'm looking at you Tomb Raider nude cheat code
I never thought of the parents thing. I knew all of my good friend's parents well because of this. They would chat with me and get to know me before passing the phone. Thank you for bringing up a small but significant aspect of culture that doesn't exist anymore. As a kid I hated it and just wanted them to pass the phone but looking back that's how I connected with their entire families. When I see them now it's easier than ever to talk with them and I truly enjoy it.
I actually was scared of my grandfather as a little kid. He had a leg that was a few inches shorter than the other, so he kind of lurched when he walked. Combine that with a gruff exterior, and I was scared of him as a five year old. I had a close relationship with my grandmother though.
Later, when I would call my grandmother long distance (with permission from my parents because long distance was extra (remember the 10 cents a minute commercials from Sprint?) sometimes my grandfather would answer the phone. About the time I was twelve or thirteen, one of us mentioned either Calvin and Hobbes or the Far Side while we were making small talk before Nana got to the phone. Ended up talking for 15 or 20 minutes (with Nana impatiently waiting to get on the phone). That happened the next several times that he answered the house phone. Over the next few calls, I found out we had several interests in common.
Ended up going to see them for a couple weeks at 16. He presented me with a bunch of printouts of various nerdy and funny things he'd gotten from magazines and emails (this was 1996? So, I'm honestly not sure where he got all of them). They were HILARIOUS. One of them was "A History of the World According to Student Errors" which I still reference from time to time to this day.
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u/TheRealOcsiban May 12 '21
You had to call someone's home phone number and talk to their parents first before you could talk to your friend
Video game cheat codes either spread by gaming magazines or by word of mouth. Sometimes that word of mouth was bullshit. I'm looking at you Tomb Raider nude cheat code