I found myself watching a church sermon today, live streamed on Facebook from the Faith Church on Fear Street in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I am not religious, despite having attended Catholic schools from the 3rd grade all the way through high school.

I attend a church once in a while. My only interest is the sermon, also called the homily. I never know what the preacher will discuss but sermons often use current events as fodder for material, not unlike standup comedians or talk radio hosts. It’s interesting, to me at least, to get a religious point of view or a religious spin on the news of the day.

I watched this service to make a more tangible connection between the church where the service was held and an eBay listing for a payphone that used to inhabit the Faith Church on Fear Road in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. There is something biblical about a church called “Faith” being located on “Fear” road. “See you at Faith on Fear this Sunday.”

The number for the Faith on Fear payphone, 715-832-9232, is listed on the old-format page of Wisconsin payphone locations. That page is indexed by Google but for some reason searching The Big G for this particular number on that page turns up nothing. Can a page be only partially indexed? That phone number is no longer in service.

For eBay $400 is not an especially high asking price for this type of phone, but the $98.90 expedited shipping stings a little.

The phone is branded Ameritech, with fine print on the information placard summoning the name of Telecom*USA, an MCI subsidiary that provided long distance operator services for this phone.

Also found on the phone is a metal placard for 1-800-FAIRCALL, a service which, to this day, still serves the anemic but still alive market for people making collect person-to-person calls.

The toll-free number on the top placard formerly connected to Ameritech’s payphone repair and refund department. Today it goes to a spammy-sounding service.

I can’t tell what 1-800-522-2020, also seen on the top placard, goes to today. It doesn’t sound like a collect call prompt but it doesn’t sound scammy, either.

The Faith on Fear church’s website uses a relatively modern Top Level Domain (TLD): .CHURCH. It’s getting to a point where typing into your web browser any two dictionary words with a dot between them will connect to a website. In this case it is www.myfaith.church.

But that’s not what matters here. What matters is the payphone. The Faith on Fear payphone.