There ain’t nowhere to go, dude! Okay, we hit Des Moines last week-end. Yeehaw! And it’s cold and brown and grey here. And it’s not much better outside. A single ray of sunshine brings comments from one and all. So yeah, I am looking to this forum for excitement and leaving a message on an answering machine is NOT what I would call delivering. 
My DSL connection was interrupted the earlier part of this week and I had many problems getting the phone convinced that my three computer systems were fine and the problem was on their end.
Well finally after 5 days of outage, someone from the phone showed up and tested the line found that something had burnt out at the phone company office and they had to replace it.
Also, I had a previous employer who lived 2 miles from his place of business and had it arranged with the phone company to ring at his house and office. If a person at each location picks up the phone, they can hear each other just like a house extension.
Hey Daniel - do you still have “United” (Sprint) service out there?
Growing up, Mason, Kings, Lebanon and Morrow all had United Telephone. The “normal” phone was a 6 party line. We got a “private” line because my mom worked from home (and her boss pulled strings with United to get it). But since we lived on the county line, IF we had had neighbors across the street, that would have been long distance to call them. When I moved to Cincinnati, Mason could call Cincy free, but it cost for Cincy to call Mason. I would call out - let it ring 2 times, hang up and they’d call me back. I was also the “go between” for all the relatives and friends who had Cincinnati service. That finally changed in 1987!!!
Once our phone messed up and was worked on. Our number was XXX-1711. After being worked on, when anyone called a XXX - 71XX number, it rang our house first. My friend’s number was XXX-7131, I called her and got a busy signal, hung up and our phone rang.
Another time, our phone was worked on, and it DIDN’T work for three weeks afterwards. Finally some supervisor or something came out, climbed the pole, and realized the first person had left the blockers on the line.
After the tornado hit our house, we left about 20ft of the phone line hanging off the house, coiled it up and hooked it to the edge of the roof (we had to reroof and reside the house). I was home when the phone company guy came (8 weeks later) to rerun our service. I could hear him walking the LENGTH of the attic repeated (the phone line was hanging at one end of the house - and there was no reason to be walking back and forth). I finally got up in the attic and asked him what he was doing. He ran a new line - from the OPPOSITE end of the house, and had it coming in right next to the electic line. I took him down and showed him the orignal line - he hadn’t seen it.
The two lines would buzz and whap against each other in wind, etc. - Dad finally called and insisted they rewire BACK where the original one had been.
I bet you can’t guess what company I do NOT have for cell phone service!!! 
I know.
I respect you too much to put it past you! 
Having Sprint for a local phone company is not a good thing. And I don’t have a cell phone, I don’t plan on getting one either.
Dale,
You could always call the construction company (on line 2, of course) and tell them they’re all fired.
Dale, exact same thing happened to me. My sister, four years older than I, had a line put into her room when she was a teenager. When I left for college the line was ‘disconnected’ and was no longer on my parents bill. Ten years later I returned home, decided to try the jack and thought it was connected to my mother’s line. Made all sorts of calls on it.
Lo and behold, it was someone else’s line. The phone company straightened that out as soon as we let them know. But it was weird to answer the phone and have someone ask for ‘John’. I replied there was no ‘John’ here…then John himself spoke up! We were all pretty stressed.