Thursday, November 30, 2006

More Maudlinalia! Where Will It End?

One of the quirks of the little town I grew up in, which I didn't realize was a quirk until I moved to the big city, was that you only needed to dial the last five digits of any local phone number for the call to go through. We only had two prefixes, 395 and 393, so it was 5- or 3- and you were off to the races. The other nifty phone function was dialing 5-0-any three digits to get the First National Bank time 'n' temperature line, although the official number was 5-0123.

I just tried it, for the first time in probably 12 years. (618)395-0123 still works, but the random last three digits thing does not. And from what I hear, you have to dial all seven numbers now locally.

Still a comfort nonetheless.

First National Bank time, 10:51. First National Bank temperature, 40.

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