When I first abandoned my life in the city for the simple life of living in a cabin, I also abandoned having a phone, and since my cabin was in the middle of no-where, it didn’t even have an address. Life is more beautiful and serene without a phone or an address. There is a peacefulness to a life where no one can contact you, but when you want to interact with the world of people, it makes life more difficult and frustrating.
My son had a family plan with his cell carrier that I could get a phone for 10 dollars a month, so, even though I don’t have cell service at either of my cabins, I have had a way for people to contact me and leave a message for the past 3 years.
One day, I was driving down the road and I saw a man getting mail out of his mailbox. I enviously thought, “Oh, look at him, getting mail out of his mailbox.� I thought to my self, “You know, you could probably have a mailbox if you really wanted one.� That’s one of the reasons I bought this cabin: because I wanted a mailbox.
After I had been at my cabin for a while I started looking into getting a land line because there is no cell service here. I was excited to get a phone at my cabin. I can lie on my couch and call someone and I can use the Internet anytime I want.
Lately, I have been using a free service called Grand Central. It’s run by Google. Apparently Google bought all of these phone numbers. You ask for a phone number in whatever area code and prefix you want. They didn’t have my town but they did have a town nearby that is toll-free. Then you list all of your numbers–work, cell, and home–and all of your numbers go to one “grand central number.” Then you have one local number that you can give people that won’t change when you do.
Since I have a dial up connection, when I’m on the internet (which is often) I can’t get calls. So, what this service does is record a message from the caller and sends me an e-mail that I have a message at Grand Central. I then go to the Grand Central web page and listen to the message.
When I cancel my phone in the spring and restart it in the fall my number changes. With this service, I can keep the same number. I’m not sure what Grand Central gets out of it.
I got to thinking; would a person really even need to have a phone to use the service. Say, you are moving around a lot and you don’t have a phone; you could get a Grand Central number and check your e-mail at the library to see if you had any messages. I asked technical guru LaenFinehack about this. He said that for most people they want it tied to a phone number. But if you are homeless they have a program called “Project CARE”, where homeless people can get a number.
