ET — You might have to cell phone home

Over the past twenty-five years or so, since I was a young adult, I’ve often enough found myself not totally on the cutting edge, but still an early-ish adopter of trends. Sometimes, this has given me odd “bragging” rights. To wit: back in the early eighties, I had first a sort of mullety haircut and then a rattail. Both are embarrassing to admit now, but back then it was a very New-Wavey thing to do in Tampa, where I attended college. No, I wasn’t part of the ‘70’s punk movement, but I got in soon enough to that place we’ll call Punk Lite. And now, as we know, any second grader can drag his/her parents into a Hot Topic at the mall and get an Anarchy t-shirt produced by some government run sweatshop in Asia.

Now let’s look at technology. Again, I wasn’t one of those people in the basement, co-inventing the Internet with the likes of Al Gore back in 1929. But when I got my first Mac in 1995, and hopped on the web, and began a sort of prototypical blog, I was still out in front of most of my peers. How rad I was with my AOL account (username HenMom)!

A recent New York Times article suggests that, unwittingly, once again I am ahead of my fellow Americans. How did I get to the edge this time? Easy: I ditched my landline back in 2005. Which makes me one of only 12% of phone users in the no-landline-only-cell-phone category.

There was a time when I had a house line, an office/fax line and a cell phone. And my kid had a cell phone. We had more numbers than we knew what to do with. I had a friend or two that streamlined down to one line only — cell — and I thought, Whoa, no way could I ever do that. A cross between fear of something I can no longer recall (maybe it was not being able to find my cell phone when some burglar broke in?) and reluctance to give up phone numbers I felt oddly attached to kept me hanging on to my landline as long as I did.

When I bought a house in 2005, I ditched my regular phone line, but did have a landline via Time Warner, a digital phone which, if electricity went out during a power outage or if I forgot to pay my bill (often the case) would be useless. Then, finally, fed up with the crappy digital phone, I said screw it and dropped down to one number, which I maintained as a cell phone only line.

Though being part of just 12% seems like a sort of exclusivity to me, this number, and the fact that it is growing, is sad news for what is known as “fixed voice service providers.” They’re freaking out because another 12% are projected to jump landline ship in the coming year. Could it be only a matter of time before the majority of US households give up landlines entirely? Don’t scoff — I’m sure some people thought the telegraph would never go away.

I also like that most of my cell-phone-only peers are 18 – 34 years old, which means some are easily young enough to be my spawn. Add to the equation that I also drive a Scion — originally targeted at 18 year-old boys — and I am feeling mighty hip and youthful over here.

I wonder what next will turn up to be labeled a trend, something I’ve been doing for years, not seeking trendsetter status, just living the way I want to. Some possibilities: housecleaning is deemed totally passé; sleeping with at least four dogs nightly is de rigueur; knitting is the new texting. Hey, an oldie-but-trendy can dream, right?

How about you? Are you cell phone only yet? Thinking about it?