Suddenly, the New Millennials needed some jingle in their jeans, and they were annoyed. I mean, a dozen quarters to make your way through a single load of wash and a single dryer load and you might have to go to the bank and get a roll of quarters for $10. Considering the fact that there are 40 quarters in a $10 roll, there might have been a black market that developed for those who took the trouble to get the coins, selling the unneeded ones at a premium to those who needed them. It had to happen.
A friend of mine who rented an apartment in a three-family home in Queens did her wash in the garage, where a washer and dryer was set up for the tenants, along with the need to feed the machines quarters to activate. Now, she has her own stacked washer/dryer units in her utility room of her new condo. No more quarters.
Once upon a time there was a need in tenements to "feed the gas meter," in order to get gas into the apartment for cooking and heat. Pay-as-you-go.
The Tweet from @jeremybowers, a director of engineering at the Washington Post, pokes fun at students' distress by telling them:
My dudes, let me tell you about a time when you had to pay with quarters to talk on the telephone.
Mr. Bowers is certainly older than a current student at Harvard, but not old enough to remember 10¢ pay phone calls and 15¢ NYC subway tokens. His youthful Twitter profile photo confirms his tender age.
The old-timers at the family flower shop who gathered in the morning in the early '60s to discuss the weather and politics could always be heard to talk about the 5¢ subway fare, where you actually shoved a nickel into the slot for your ride. These guys were born in the 1890s. I am now as old as they were then. And it's a funny feeling.
As for telephone calls, they were once 10¢ at a payphone and x number of message units from what we now refer to as a landline. A message unit?
Yes, a message unit was about 7.1¢ on your phone bill. But how many message units did the call use? That was the secret sauce of telephone billing. You could, if you read your phone book (another vestigial organ) find out how many message units you were using when you called certain numbers. They were clustered by "exchanges." (Also a vestigial organ.) But who would take the time to read their phone book?
It was nearly 30 years ago when I added the phone company's voice mail capability to our account. I called and asked if when I called my number for messages, did that count as using a message unit? The guy laughed. Yep.
Of course, all that was then, and this is now. Flat rate, unlimited calling "plans" abound. As do now the fees, taxes, and extortion charges for what ever "benefits" the community, or helps the MTA build a bridge. A phone bill of under $5 is certainly a thing of the past.
The NYC subway is already phasing in turnstiles that take a phone swipe for the fare. Eventually, the MetroCard will be a thing of the past. It is a stark realization of where does the time go when you are informed the MetroCard has been around for 25 years now,. It is old.
The NYC token was made necessary when the fare went to 15¢ from 10¢. Since the turnstiles took U.S. coins, and there was no 15¢ piece, a token was devised to pay for the fare. Subsequent fare increases generally, but not always, required a new token size to be used. Even "forever" stamps go up in cost. Such is the definition of forever.
I already see people on the commuter trains show their activated phones to the conductor as proof of their ticket. I'm not a complete Luddite. I'm moved past a flip phone, getting a hand-me-down from one of my daughters. I do still favor a desktop computer and still use Windows 7.
I read a piece about the writer John le Carré, who is 88, and who writes his works in longhand, having it transcribed by his wife to the computer.
But the biggest kick I get out of the stories of what-cost-what-when is from a member of "The Assembled, " our coterie of race track handicappers who gather several times a year and do our best at equine prophesy. Sometimes with life-altering results.
The oldest member, who has now crossed another Rubicon and entered his 80s, Bobby G., will sometimes remind us that when his continuity in life was interrupted by Uncle Sam, and he found himself a Captain in the army after he was drafted when he was between his medical internship and his residency, that condoms from the vending machine in base men's room required a 2¢ purchase.
I've yet to ask Bobby G. how many pennies did he walk around with.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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