Hanging on the Telephone


Wrigleys_1538, originally uploaded by carolsLittleWorld.

At this point, one can only hope the Wrigley’s Girls double as suitable telephone operators. You see, today was the day that Austin acquired a new area code. Because of the new area code goodness, the phone company has dictated that we now must all dial lots of numbers, even to make a local call. So, anybody in the 512, for example, now has to dial 512-xxx-xxxx to reach anybody on the telephone even, say, their next door neighbor. It’s oh-so-confusing, especially for a bunch of people who are sort of like hippies, slackers, and the like. We can (collectively) barely remember to tie our shoelaces. I swear, just yesterday, I ran into a man who had forgotten to put his trousers on in the morning. It was mid-afternoon and he was still pant-less although, in his defense, he was thinking about putting something on. You expect somebody like that to remember to dial 512 when you only casually mentioned this to him sometime back in January? Right. Sure. That’s so going to happen. (Not!)

Yes, now I know the phone company had warned us about this months ago. For months now, in fact, they have been putting those little pamphlets in our telephone bills alerting us to the fact that, “Dude, June 1st in coming and that means a new area code!” Right. I’ll get right on that. Sure thing. Right after I clip my nostril hair and eat an entire pickle while standing on one leg reciting the Declaration of Independence in my kitchen. It’s just one of those things, well, as you can imagine, we *didn’t* get right around to doing. This is a town where men forget to get dressed in the morning or, if they do, they wind up looking like Leslie. You really expect Leslie to dial 512? I mean, he was always too busy matching his feather boa to his high heeled pumps, I’m sure he would not remember this pesky 512 business, nope, not at all. Ah, yes, 512 business indeed. My guess is the whole city is walking around a bit confused today. On a positive note, I’m sure there was a heck of a lot less “butt dialing” than usual, and that really should make somebody happy. No?

As for me, no, I have not yet gone through my phone contacts in the old iPhone and, ahem, “adjusted” them to have the new 512 area code. Not yet anyway. I plan to at some point, mind you, but not quite yet. I haven’t butt dialed anybody in a while so maybe it’s time I do that again just for the grins of it, but I’d have to say I’m just as confused as the next guy. Sure, I kept hearing this was coming down the pike on June 1st but who can remember when, exactly, June 1st is? Heck, I sure can’t. To me, it’s just another hot Saturday with some weird guy running around without pants on telling us all how he appears to have forgotten how to work a telephone.

It’s not a lovely picture, that, so you’ll just have to imagine it. I’ve spared you the gory details of that one (Phew!) Can we now all just agree that this 512 business took us all by surprise and can somebody, please, get that man some pants already.

We thank you for your support.

Until next time…

3 Comments

  1. Great Grandma Lin
    Author
    June 2, 2013 / 1:12 pm

    keep your sense of humor and you'll be alright…lol!

  2. Peruby
    Author
    June 3, 2013 / 11:03 am

    I've had to go through this twice now in my life. I can still remember my Geometry teacher saying "we will never run out of phone numbers and he even had an example to show us".

    To a 15 year old mind, he could have shown me pi and I would not have known the difference.

    I guess he just left out the part that we will have to keep changing our area codes as our little "area" gets smaller and smaller and more congested with people and how many numbers we all need.

    Now, where's my pants?

  3. Carol
    Author
    June 6, 2013 / 12:31 am

    "We will never run out of phone numbers…" Sure, we believe that. Like you say, new area codes, without moving too. Just new area codes all of the time and lots and lots of devices. Oh, and lots of people who forget their pants. :~)

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