ET

But they're chips that can crush a tank.

Russell Guldin

Wanna chip bro?

Jono Hayward

Jenny? Is that you?

Mad Marie

867-5309

Kent Reniche

It’s been years now, decades really, but I still remember my old home number because I had to memorize it for a thing in kindergarten. Sometimes I’ll still spot old Southwestern Bell signs or weatherworn signs near me that don’t have the area code printed because who besides a local would even be calling?

KingAtticus

When my parents bought our house in 1965, there was no phone service at all on our road. A couple years later, the phone company put in a party line, which was how we operated until the mid 1970s. If you were calling our house, the operator had to connect you. Once we got our own line, it was a 5-digit number until around 1980. As Chris Warren said, the first two digits were assumed - much like the area code was assumed until just a few years ago.

awgiedawgie

@Chirs_Warren Sounds like you were, like me, alive and active in the late 80s/early 90s. Even in my quite rural locale (Eastern Kentucky), the possibility of dialing just five numbers was only a thing until maybe 1991 or 1992.

Neil Moore

At one time, you only had to use five digits to call other people in the city we lived in. The first two were assumed, like we were all part of one big office phone system.

Chris Warren

Being seniors, my twin brother and I get incessant landline phone calls about Medicare benefits, funeral insurance coverage, and offers to send us COVID testing kits (we currently have about 80 that we don't know what to do with).

Daniel Drazen

But the point remains - whenever Bubbles gets lost and forgets her phone number, she just waves a wand over herself to find it again.

Simon Green

I had a home phone myself for roughly 10 years. I didn't use it and never memorized it xD

Mrpink

Perhaps she defines "I" as her own personality rather than her body, which would be entirely composed of computational chips, and therefore correct in her statement =]

Mrpink

I know the home (parent) phone numbers of my 4 high school best friends. I do not know my husband's cell phone number.

Laura Curry

Bubbles is being unfair to herself. There are structural and cosmetic components, wires, servos, etc. She's probably not even mostly chips.

Gabriel Burns

I can also instantly recite the numbers for my grandmother (twenty-five years gone now), two friends from childhood, and the local PBS pledge line number that they used back when I was watching Sesame Street after school.

Mad Marie

After over 4 decades with the same home phone number, my parents finally got rid of it…that phone was only ringing from spam calls by the end. I imagine that I will still be able to rattle that number off when I’ve become ancient and am starting to forget my own grandkids’ names.

Mad Marie

I pay for a home phone entirely because of my mother.

Chris Crowther

I laughed surprisingly hard at this

Nicole Hands

Poor Emmett... What's the betting they turn out to know Sam's number? xD Also, is this Faye/Bubbles android offspring-shadowing 😄

enchantedsleeper

Can we just check the Emmett remembers their own address and their mother's name.

Stephen Wells

OK I was reading the longest day arc (as noted in the spreadsheet) and Emmett is the human counterpart to Melon. Melon's line on 4111 is almost identical to one of Emmett's lines in this comic arc.

Opus the Poet

Funny phone story, when I was killed back in 2001([Monty Python]I got better.[/Monty Python]) when I was asked about address and phone number, I gave my parent's number in another state, and my home address from my senior year in HS, 25 years after I graduated. My bell was truly rung that night!

Opus the Poet

Panel 4 is an absolutely perfect vintage Charles Schultz face.

Clifton Royston

The thing I hated about home phones is when someone set them to vibrate and the whole house shook.

hollowsoul

Just give 'em a special Apple AirTag necklace.

Shane Wegner

This poor cinnamon roll

darklion

😭 i know emmett's pain all too well. losing a phone as an adult is a pain, but losing a phone as a kid has a whole extra layer of "my parents are going to keelhaul me"

Logan Nix

Emmett uses they/them pronouns, not she/her

Ace

EmmETt…!

Daniel Rydberg

I have 0 landline phones and...4 landlines? I think? I've lost count. The local monopolist telcos sell bundled services with nonsense pricing, and they really hate the Internet because they invested heavily in legacy services and they haven't paid back their loans yet. We get "Internet" by itself for $N+$M+$P, "smartphone" by itself for $M, and a bundle of "Internet + smartphone + TV + a landline or two, maybe some VOIP devices" for $N. Doing the math, the differential cost of adding the landline to an Internet connection when I already have a mobile phone is negative. The telco effectively pays me $P every month to have completely unnecessary landlines. So I do. (the monopolist also produces TV programs, and would like us to plug a TV into their receiver box so we can watch their commercials and help their licensing revenue, which is why their TV pricing is also negative)

Zygo

Real handy to have one number that can reach either me or my wife depending on who's available.

Well, we can tell Bubbles is made out of chips, cuz she's a snack

Jessie Basham

Sometimes they're a free additional service with DSL internet.

Justin

Oh Emmet <3

Bagge

I've got one (although it's VOIP, not traditional phone line).

Sean Kinlin

I still have one. I find it useful to cull spam callers and solicitors from my cell.

Michael Boettger

I'm torn between whether that would exacerbate Emmett's anxiety because of embarrassment, or would make them calmer because they'd find the activity cool.

Sean Kinlin

She also has motors and solenoids.

Sean Kinlin

People still get home phones?

fluffy

Clearly the solution is for Bubbs to hoist Em up high and wander around town loudly declaiming LO0O0O0OST CHIIIILLLLD! LOO0O0O0O0SSST CHIIIIILLD!

Gorbulus Maximus

That’s be an international call, it’s not on Hanners’ plan—wait wrong storyline sorry

Magic Chopstick Games

Yeah, you know, ya get the the kid glanded so they'll leave a scent trail.

Ursus Ridens

It'd be weird if she didn't have any relatives still living in Canada still that she would know the number of.

Shawn Spencer

I mean, she's not ENTIRELY chips

Adam Abbott

They probably have Sam's dad's number, and he probably has Emmet's mom's number

PhaineOfCatz

Bubs, to their own adolescent progeny, years from now: *exasperated sigh* some days I truly believe we should have had you glanded

Magic Chopstick Games