Telephone Numbers
I experienced a bit of culture shock last weekend when I was driving and saw a billboard with the admonition to call a seven digit phone number.
The number looked so short, naked almost. Where was the area code?
At work I've begun to see whether I can remember which part of the country a particular area code belongs to. Zip codes are easy, they go mostly numerically from the East Coast to the West, but area codes? No rhyme or reason, that I've yet discovered. Someday I might even be able to recognize immediately what the area code is for Jamaica or London, Ontario.
But then again, perhaps I never will get to the more difficult aspects of zip code braggery because I keep getting stuck on the numbers that come before the area code.
Yes, I do mean the "1".
And the "9" I have to dial before that when I am at work.
It's that whole "at work" thing that gets me confused. Several times now, when I am about to make a phone call on my cell phone, I dial the nine and get the whole number entered in before I realize that it doesn't look right. And several times at work I've remembered the "9" but not the "1" before the area code.
This, surely, is a sign of mental deterioration. For a time while I lived in the dorms, and before the advent of my cell phone, dialing an outside line required more than 40 digits. There were the ten digits on the campus calling card to have access to an outside line that wasn't tied up, then another eleven digits to call the better-priced phone card toll-free number, then the sixteen digits of the pin number and then, I could call home.
My co-workers are already commenting on the magic transition that supposedly happens at thirty when you no longer are able to untangle difficult technological problems like how to get rid of the help menu or how to power up the printer. One commented that I only have four more years were I will be able to assist them in solving their conundrums.
Maybe by then I will have memorized the United States area codes.
The number looked so short, naked almost. Where was the area code?
At work I've begun to see whether I can remember which part of the country a particular area code belongs to. Zip codes are easy, they go mostly numerically from the East Coast to the West, but area codes? No rhyme or reason, that I've yet discovered. Someday I might even be able to recognize immediately what the area code is for Jamaica or London, Ontario.
But then again, perhaps I never will get to the more difficult aspects of zip code braggery because I keep getting stuck on the numbers that come before the area code.
Yes, I do mean the "1".
And the "9" I have to dial before that when I am at work.
It's that whole "at work" thing that gets me confused. Several times now, when I am about to make a phone call on my cell phone, I dial the nine and get the whole number entered in before I realize that it doesn't look right. And several times at work I've remembered the "9" but not the "1" before the area code.
This, surely, is a sign of mental deterioration. For a time while I lived in the dorms, and before the advent of my cell phone, dialing an outside line required more than 40 digits. There were the ten digits on the campus calling card to have access to an outside line that wasn't tied up, then another eleven digits to call the better-priced phone card toll-free number, then the sixteen digits of the pin number and then, I could call home.
My co-workers are already commenting on the magic transition that supposedly happens at thirty when you no longer are able to untangle difficult technological problems like how to get rid of the help menu or how to power up the printer. One commented that I only have four more years were I will be able to assist them in solving their conundrums.
Maybe by then I will have memorized the United States area codes.
Comments