Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!telecom-request From: dsinet!marka@quick.com (Mark Anacker) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Invasion of the Phone Snatchers (COCOTs Strike Again!) Message-ID: Date: 23 Mar 91 00:27:19 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: Digital Systems Intl., Inc. Lines: 22 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 227, Message 11 of 13 Hi, Last weekend my wife and I stopped in a touristy little town here in Washington called Leavenworth. We needed to call some friends in town, so we pulled up at one of the many, *OFFICIAL-LOOKING* pay phones. It wasn't until it refused to complete her call, and ate her quarter, that I went over and found it was one of those infernal coin disposal machines disguised as a phone. We looked around a bit, and it appears as if THE ENTIRE TOWN has been converted to these things! They're everywhere - like some plague of sales-locusts descended on the town one day. If I hadn't been in the town before, and knew of the only alternative, we'd have been stuck. Attached to the wall of the GTE CO in town, like a shining beacon of hope, was a real GTE pay phone. Apparently the only one in town. My guess is that this is what the locals use, and leave the new phones to the sucke ... er, tourists. Mark Anacker ...{!dsinet,!toybox}!marka Digital Systems International, Inc. Redmond, WA USA (206) 881-7544