How did we *survive*?!?

About an hour ago, I was catching up with an old friend from the 90s that I've kept in touch with through the years and visited several times (even though I moved to a different state at the end of that decade). We were part of a wonderfully tight-knit group of gamer friends (of the tabletop RPG variety) and I always enjoy hearing how he and some of our old friends are doing.

I called him because I saw on a fediverse post that the original Matrix movie came out 25 years ago today! I just had to call him up because we saw it together all those years ago, and I knew I could elicit a sympathetic groan out of him once I told him the exact number of years that had transpired.

Of course, I remember the movie extremely clearly, as well as many of our bedazzled conversations about it afterwards. I remember how badly I wanted a trench coat after seeing the Matrix, and how happy I was to get one as a gift from a parent a couple years later (still have it!) That movie changed the culture almost as much as Star Wars (ok, fine, at least as much as the prequels ;), but that's not what I want to talk about right here.

I was recalling a story to him about a time when I didn't have a car and I had missed the bus (maybe a couple years before The Matrix). I recall waiting for the bus, realizing I had missed it, and remembered a couple friends coming to my rescue in their car. What I couldn't remember was how I contacted them and requested a ride.

Wait, I didn't have a cell phone! How did I call them? Did I use a pay phone?!?
> You know, we did have those back then.
Yeah, but... dude! How did we EVER survive without cell phones?!?

And now I'm wondering... was the pay phone right at the bus stop? Was it close by? Did I have to walk a mile to find one? I have no idea!

I do remember a friend generously giving me a small tupperware container full of coins a couple weeks prior to that (one of the friends that came in the car to rescue me), so at least I can be thankful that I had coinage on me.

I'm sure my GenZ friends must wonder what we did before we could get cell phones, and honestly,
I'm not totally sure.