Land lines: Fusty? Yes. Trusty? You betcha!

The four most thrilling words in news today: New statistics about telephones! Survey says 24 percent of Minnesotans don't have a "land line." That's the term for phones dependent on lines high up on poles above the land. Only 9 percent of Minnesotans remain land-line only households, and they're mostly out in Greater Minnesota, where a cellphone can get one bar if you stand atop the silo on a day with no sunspots. Those of us in the metro, or Lesser Minnesota, have cut the cord in greater numbers, because we are vital, modern people who believe in impressing others by walking around the grocery store shouting instructions to the nanny.

What does it mean? It's good news for the future, since more cell-only households means there are plenty of young'ns around to run the state after the land-line generation finally hangs up, so to speak. Land lines, to the under-AARP demographic, are like semaphore lamps or smoke signals (which were banned indoors in 1976, due to second-hand conversation). Kids laugh at them: Gosh, dad, ordering pizza on a phone attached to the wall? Why don't you just tie your order to the leg of a carrier pigeon? Ha ha! Do you pay with a check and use AOL, too? Ha ha, you're old and your bones are frail and the lengthening shadow of mortality adds a somber cast to the brightest day! Oh, I went too far, didn't I.

Actually, land lines have advantages:

1. At home I've never missed a call because I had screwed the phone off the wall, severed the bell wire, and put the phone in my coat pocket. I miss cell calls all the time because I can't find it, or have the phone on mute because you hate my ring tone. Well, maybe you don't, but I hate your ring tone, so I'm assuming it's mutual. Seems fair.

2. Old phones are powered by the lines themselves. What do you do when your cellphone is out of juice and the power goes off, and you need to contact 911? You have to write a letter. With BIG RED NUMBERS on the envelope so they know it's an emergency.

3. People can talk over each other better on a land line. The lag on some cells results in that conversational minuet we all know -- you stop, the other person stops, there's a pause, and you both say "go ahead," then you pause again. It's like two people doing the "no, after you" routine in front of a revolving door that's going the other way.

For these reasons, I will never give up a phone on the wall. Also, tradition. I remember when a phone call was something of an event. Unlike the bleepity-burble of modern phones, the old metal bells cut through the quiet, settled atmosphere of the house like a meat cleaver through a Jell-O mold, and everyone leaped to answer. No voice mail, no caller ID; every call was a mystery. If it was after 11, it meant someone was calling long-distance because someone had died -- heck, phone rings at 11:30, you start throwing shirts in a suitcase. Of course, you had to answer: If you let it ring there was an unbearable tension, like you'd escaped from prison and the ring was the searchlight raking the walls. It was a cruel and capricious master, but it always worked, and you never lost it. Back then we never thought that phones and computers would be combined into one small thing you could stick in your shirt pocket, then watch in horror as it fell in the toilet when you leaned over. Such dreams we dared not dream.

Nothing says go to hell like a dial tone. Glaring at the screen and tapping END CALL on the touchscreen isn't quite the same. You can use your middle finger, but they'll never know.