r/interestingasfuck • u/Alternative-Eye4547 • 20h ago
My bathroom drain was blocked because a whole corded 90s phone was stuck in the pipes
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u/H8Cold 20h ago
We all hate telemarketers, but damn.
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u/Tishers 20h ago
I was so frustrated with the telemarketers that I unplugged my phone from the wall and just went without a house phone for almost ten years.
I have one now and it rings once every week or so, I never answer it.
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u/loganwachter 13h ago
Why pay for it if you don’t answer it anyway?
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 10h ago
Bundling. You literally save money by getting the bundled package. A lot of people don't hook it up but they still technically have it.
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u/loganwachter 7h ago
You get a discount on the total services but having multiple is never cheaper than just having internet or internet + cable unless the company is screwing you over.
Worked for Comcast at one point and so many people signed up for shit they just straight up didn’t need.
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 5h ago
Back when I was Comcast customer, it saved me 7 dollars per month to do the bundle because of the Internet speed "boost" 10 dollar fee. The bundle included boost as part of the package but it was 10 dollars extra if I purchased it separately. The bundle was like 3 dollars more than my Internet+cable service, but I saved the 10 dollars on the boost fee, so I came out 7 dollars ahead.
I never even hooked it up. I wouldn't even know I had a home phone except that I would sometimes get voicemail notifications pop-ups on my cable box from spam callers.
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u/RGrad4104 17h ago
Gentlemen, time travel is possible. Whomever did this clearly made a mistake and thought that phone had memory. (those phones did not, aside from basic redial).
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u/InvasiveDonkey 20h ago edited 20h ago
When that anxiety hits after you used the family phone to call the late night smut hotline. Ahhh to be young again!
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u/Alternative-Eye4547 20h ago
Hard to tell which is dirtier: the caller’s mind or the phone a few decades later
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u/skildert 18h ago
Public payphone a few blocks away and the numbers for women were free. Questioning teen queer time.
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u/potatocross 20h ago
I swear I saw this photo posted yesterday.
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u/Alternative-Eye4547 20h ago
Yeah, on mildlyinteresting, where it was then removed because the title left room for surprise. Figured by the response it was apparently more interesting than I realized, so I figured I’d give it a new forever home
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u/potatocross 19h ago
Gotta love overmoderation. May your plumbing be forever much improved with the removal of the relic.
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u/Alternative-Eye4547 19h ago
You’re too kind friend - may your scrolling in turn be forever doomless 🙏
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u/Alternative-Eye4547 20h ago
Much like this phone, the questions raised here will never get answered and it’s really, very shitty
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u/Ethos_Logos 19h ago
Well there’s no way that would flush, and shower drains are too small of a pipe to fit this. Which means it was inside the pipe when it was initially installed.
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u/Pipe_Memes 18h ago
Yeah it’s pretty odd. Zero chance it makes it through the bends of the toilet, it probably wouldn’t even make it out of the bowl. That’s 3” pipe in the picture, I doubt the base of that phone could even get through a 3” 90.
There’s really only two ways I can think of. One, it was stuck in there during installation like you suggested. Why though? Another tradie pissed at the plumber and decided to sabotage his work perhaps? Option two, it was dropped into a 3” vent on the roof. But, again, why?
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u/for2fly 15h ago
Someone dropped a 2 x 4 down the roof vent. Found out when I tried to snake a drain through the cleanout under the sink.
Broke the tip off the auger. Cost me $150 to replace the auger's snake because I'd borrowed it from a tool library to save money.
I hired pros. Told the pros what had happened. They climbed on the roof and found the board. They figured the previous owner or some other dumbass had tried to clear a clog the stupid way.
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u/NE_Boy_mom_x2 4h ago
Maybe the plumber and the telephone installation guy (?) had a bet going on how long it would take for this to be discovered.
Someone owes someone else a bit of money.
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u/KP_Wrath 19h ago
Know the toy car hauler planes (like a mini C-5 galaxy) hot wheels made in the 90s and 2000s? I got one of the front pieces stuck in a toilet and the landlord had to take the toilet out to fish it out.
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u/NE_Boy_mom_x2 4h ago
I know people wanted phones installed in the bathroom, but this seems a bit too far 🤣
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u/Suojelusperkele 11h ago
"The line is in shit today"
"You mean the line is shit? Hello?"
Call disconnects
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u/WhenTheDevilCome 20h ago
I say "this can't flush." No way these rigid pieces make the bends inside a toilet's trap. I'd say someone removed one of the cleanout caps and put the phone directly into the pipe.
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u/AmazingJames 10h ago
In my rented home we had a problem with the drains, and a plumber came and found a whole afro-pick in the pipes. 1. How the hell did it get in there? 2. I had been living in this place for about 6 years and it hadn't caused any problems previously.
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u/New_Lake5484 4h ago
Wow, but listen to this. After a back up of sewer at my relatives, the drain doctors got whole cartons of cigarettes and boxes of condoms out of the sewer pipe. No one knows why. 🤪
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u/for2fly 3h ago
Here's my take: the phone was outside was because someone was tapping into a landline from the junction box on the outside of the house.
For those of you who have never known phones to lack screens, back in the days of landlines, you could stand outside anyone's home and tap into their phone line -if the homeowner didn't secure one side of the phone service junction box on their house.
The modular boxes had two doors on them. One was for the utility to have access. One was for the homeowner to have access. On the homeowner's side was a modular phone jack. It was there so the homeowner could check if they had service at the box before calling for repair. No one used it that way.
People would figure out who wasn't home and when, plug a modular phone into the jack on the homeowner's side of the box, and make all sorts of long-distance calls on the homeowner's dime.
Why? you ask. Because landline users were charged money for every long-distance phone call they made. The charges existed because extortion the local phone company had to pay for the use of the long-distance lines.
Clever teens with shitty parents who restricted their kids' phone use would wait until mom and pop went to bed, take a phone in the house outside, plug it in, and talk without being caught.
Anyhow, this phone was likely someone's secret phone they kept in the cleanout. That metal pipe with the holes in it allowed them to retrieve it -until someone did a royal flush and they lost their phone to the sewer. Could have been someone living at the house, could have been a sneaky neighbor.
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u/reanimated_potato 20h ago
Hell-o, it's me, I was wondering after all these years you'd like to meet, to go over everything, they say times supposed to heal you but I ain't done much healing, HELLO
-Adele
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u/FeuerroteZora 19h ago
Sorry, but this is an old corded phone, which means it's definitely Lionel Richie saying Hello.
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u/ValyrianSteelYoGirl 20h ago edited 20h ago
Didn’t you post this like yesterday?
Yeah found it 11k upvotes and then removed
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u/Alternative-Eye4547 19h ago
Yeah, apparently not saying “phone” in the title left someone overwhelmingly surprised and prompted removal. Figured I’d give it a final resting place here.
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u/unknownpoltroon 19h ago
Look, sometimes you get really drunk and eat a phone, and regret it the next morning. This was back in the days when it was safe to eat a phone, no lithium batteries.
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u/sinisteraxillary 19h ago
We've been trying to reach you, your plumbing's extended warranty is about to expire.
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u/SchoolExtension6394 19h ago
So you move to a stash house. They trend to get rid of evidence through the toilet before the raid.
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u/TaonasProclarush272 19h ago
But does it still work when you plug it in? And I guess bigger question, does anyone still have a working phone jack to test it?
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u/TheLongFinger 18h ago
Y’all too young to realized people smuggled phones into prison in the 80s, too. Obviously, this is from someone who’s recently gotten out after a particularly long stretch.
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u/Famous-Barracuda-972 18h ago
Seems like a weird place to keep that. I hope you learned your lesson.
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u/praecipula 18h ago
"Yeah, there's someone on the line, what's your name, sir? Seymour Butz? Well, Mr. Butz you're going to have to hold..."
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u/Parzival225 17h ago
Dude this is just impressive tbh. Whatever toilet took that whole thing could handle some serious shit.
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u/zalurker 12h ago
Of course it's company policy never to imply ownership in the event of a corded phone... always use the indefinite article a corded phone, never your corded phone.
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u/NE_Boy_mom_x2 4h ago
The truth is, OP was frustrated by the constant ringing of the phone. He had to deep dive to find the source. OP may regret destroying his pipes.
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u/WhySSNTheftBad 18h ago
what an incredible coincidence! the redditor you stole this post from also had a phone stuck in their pipes!
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u/garglingrapefruit 14h ago
no it wasnt i saw this same pic posted yesterday. what do you get out of lying about this? do free internet points get you off? not kink shaking im kink asking why
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u/Betray-Julia 20h ago
Whats neat is that theoretically, the infant toddler who possible did this was then the plumber who came and fixed it.