Our land line went dead last Friday. I killed it.

For years, I argued that we needed the land line in addition to our cell phones because the land line keeps working when cell phones don’t, like during a power outage. Also, you don’t have to charge the battery of a land-line phone. “You’ll thank me when the zombie apocalypse comes and we still have a phone,” I told My Darling B.

But, as the years passed and the zombie apocalypse failed to happen except in the movies, it seemed kinda stupid to keep paying for the land line, and especially so because the only people who called us more than once a months were telemarketers, so we were essentially paying for them to have access to us.

When we got smart phones a few weeks back, I finally gave in and had the land line disconnected. Kept the internet access, and I still have my trusty rotary phone on the table beside my recliner, but to take or make a phone call I have to use my smart phone, which is pretty good as a map or an internet browser or a music player but it actually kind of sucks as a phone. The sound quality is so bad and I get pretty frustrated when my cheek brushes against the touch screen and ends the call prematurely. Still, we don’t get calls from telemarketers any more.