I probably spent hours of my youth fixing these.
People who moved around and swapped the phone from ear to ear constantly were the usual culprits. If you twist one way, you have to twist back. Ignoring the reconciliation just led to this mess.
Really no different than a hose or extension cord.














In the late 90s (or maybe 2000) in the US Midwest, I remember paying $0.79 a gallon, or $0.21/L. With the exchange rate then, it works out to £0.13/L. So yeah, it was cheap. I filled my 15 gallon tank for the cost of 2 hours at my just above minimum wage job.