I was listening to a Weird Al song about prank calls and realized you can’t really do them anymore now. Also it was funny that he mentioned dialing 7 digit numbers instead of 10
my phone has been on silent mode since 2012
Because of my job I have to answer unknown numbers. My God is it ever irritating
People get really upset that I don’t check my phone often and keep it on do not disturb…
They can just keep on being upset. Their reaction kind of reinforces why I have the damn thing mostly disabled from its primary function anyway.
Back then “if it’s important they would call”. Recently, “they will call back if it’s important”. Now, “they will leave a message if it’s important.”
Don’t go making fony calls. Please stick to the 7 digit numbers you’re used to!
When I was a kid, we would spell out “dirty words” in people’s phone numbers and call saying we were from the “Telephone Number Decency League”. We’d say the naughty word thier number could spell and encourage them to call the phone company to ask for a new phone number.
Love it. We used soundboards. The Schwarzenegger one was a blast. You get them paying attention with the lines from kindergarten cop then start going wild on them with lines from predator, etc. My personal favorite was “I hope you left enough room for my fist, because I’m gonna ram it into your stomach!” One memorable woman tried to save Arnold’s soul with gospel music. I think she enjoyed the whole thing.
I remember the shift to using area codes and how everyone was so upset at how difficult that would be. Then the smart phones came, and I wonder how many people now know many of the numbers they might regularly call with one tap,
Where I grew up, we only ever gave the last four digits of our number because the whole town and then some was the same. Later, they changed the area code since it was running out of numbers and then we moved to 10-digit dialing. I remember how weird it felt when things like long distance calls just kinda stopped being a thing
we got a second area code on top of our existing one and had to start 10-digit dialing something like 15 years ago.
to this day i have yet to encounter anyone with a phone number in that new area code. even the scammers that spoof their cid don’t use that new area code.
before the switch we could 7-digit dial for 40 miles around us, even across an area code boundary. and, tbh i’d rather have had to switch to a new area code and kept the 7 digit dialing than have to deal with the 10 digit bullshit. it just seems so out of place here in the boonies, hours away from, well, pretty much everything.
