And the frustration of dialing a '9' near the end of the number only to have your finger slip and dial prematurely, registering a wrong digit, and having to hang up and start over. Rotary phones were just evil.

@resserts I remember a rotary at my grandma’s house. They also had a “party” line, I remember talking with her on the phone and the other party that shared the line would interrupt and want to make a call. They were often rude about it, demanding we get off the line because they needed to make a call.

@OtherPatrick I still have a 'landline' phone, but very much modern these days, NO cell/mobile phone though since I like to be without one such thing that everyone EXPECTS you to have around at all times.
Sadly, but humorously at times, I often get calls on the landline from someone twat who dialed the wrong number.
One such call was from a woman who wanted to speak to 'Ethel' so I simply told her that there was no more Ethel, I had had a sex change and was now called Ethelred the Ruthless, haven't heard from her since....LOL.

@OtherPatrick Ah, yes, I still have a landline (in a dead zone for cell reception, but would keep the land line regardless), and I remember as a kid having a party line. I think technology was at a point where it rang in separately, though, as I don't remember ever needing to pay attention to a specific ring pattern, but I do recall sometimes picking up and hearing other people talking. Over time people got away from the party line, so it was just us and someone who almost never used his phone. And then that guy died, so we were technically on a party line but were the only ones on it. We kept that arrangement for many years, getting a reduced phone rate. We very well may have been the last people in the country who still had a party line.

Gotta love phone hijinks!