MDBCs 18 Nov 2023

November 18 is Push Button Phone Day. The unofficial holiday commemorates the anniversary of the introduction of the push button phone by Bell Systems in the United States.

First introduced to customers in some areas of Pennsylvania on November 18, 1963, push button phones were the fancy alternatives to rotary dial phones.

Push button phones are phones that use buttons to dial numbers and connect to another telephone user.

Today, the introduction of cell phones and touch screens have made push button phones obsolete.

How to Celebrate?

If you can get your hands on a push button phone, try and install it and use it to make phone calls.
Learn more about the science and history behind these phones.

Did You Know…

…that the first words spoken over a telephone were “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you”? They were spoken by the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant Thomas Watson.

***

One day a duck walks in a store and asks the manager if they sell grapes.

The manager says, "No, we don't sell grapes."

The duck goes home and comes back the next day and asks the same question. The manager says the same thing again, "No, we do not sell grapes."

The duck goes home, comes back the next day, and asks the manager if they sell grapes. This time the manager says, "No, we don't sell grapes! If you ask one more time, I will nail your beak to the floor!"

The duck goes home. It comes back the next day and asks the manager if he has any nails.

The manager says, "No, I don't have any nails."

The duck says, "Okay, good. Do you sell grapes?"

***

Son: "Dad, when will I be old enough so I don't have to ask mom for her permission to go out?"

Dad: "Son, even I haven't grown old enough to go out without her permission!"

***

A 7 year-old and a 4 year-old are in their bedroom. "You know what?" says the 7 year-old, "I think it's time we started swearing. When we go downstairs for breakfast, I'll swear first, then you."

"Okay," replies the 4 year-old.

In the kitchen, when the mother asks the 7 year-old what he wants for breakfast, he answers, "I'll have Coco Pops, bitch."

*WHACK* He goes flying out of his chair, crying his eyes out.

The mother looks at the 4 year-old & sternly asks, "And what do you want?"

"Dunno," he replies, "But it won't be fucking Coco Pops."

***

Thinking no one could hear me as I loaded a UPS tractor trailer, I began to whistle. I was really getting into it when a coworker in the next trailer poked his head in.

“You know, I always used to wish I could whistle,” he said. “Now I just wish you could.”