I must be behind the times. I operate a business that requires me to be "out and about" most of the time. I don't have a "yuppie" phone. Most of the teenagers I see have one though. (Like any of their business is that time sensitive.)
I carry a Motorola "Advisor Gold" digital pager. (Actually, it usually stays on the sun visor of the truck.) The service I use also provides voice mail. When somebody calls the phone at the shop, it's forwarded to voice mail. People at the service listen to the message, transcribe it and page it to me. I can also call and check the voice mailbox for messages if I happen to have been "out of range" for awhile.
I can also be paged using a paging program on a pc and modem or through the internet. One can send an e-mail to the pager. I actually have some equipment that pages me itself when it has problems. Since the pager has a dedicated phone number, somebody can call THAT number and leave a message,
toll free. I actually wouldn't really need a telephone myself.
All this for about 26 bucks a month, flat.
If I have to return a phone call, sometimes I have to find a pay phone. I carry one of those 5 cents a minute Wal-Mart phone cards for that if it's long distance.
The only drawback is that with the proliferation of cell phones, pay phones are getting harder to find. (Guess there's just not the money in them that there used to be.) Where I travel regularly, I've pretty much got them all located though.
Now you ask: What happens if I'm out on the highway and have a breakdown?
I'm an amateur radio operator and have two-meter rigs in all the vehicles. I can always get hold of a ham with a land line and get him/her to call for help.
To me, the bad thing about phones is that if they ring, one feels compelled to answer!