And they did not track you.

Everyone was supposed to turn them in... 🙄
That reminds me of everyone was supposed to get jabbed.

I think the landline will run a coffee pot when the power is out.

Ummm.... they got their electricity thru the actual phone line (they weren't magic zero energy boxes) - so if power goes off locally they usually worked as the electric line and phone lines were not shared.

However if the National Grid goes down then so does their power source and they would be dead too... 📞😵

And you could take it off the hook when you did not want to be disturbed and there were no stupid ads to deal with constantly. 😂