Sorry, more numbers: New telephone area codes might make you want to hang it up
by Beth Teitell

Wednesday, March 28, 2001

I don't know about you, but I'm a very busy person, with many important things to remember.

On Monday, I spent hours studying Oscar photos to determine, in the name of science, whether the goiter on the back of Julia's head was made of her own hair or not.

And the facts taking up space in my brain? I know that Christy Turlington believes it's important to drink lots of water; that Cindy Brady is about to turn 40; that Hilary Swank fired her stylist the week before the Academy Awards! Not, in other words, information that should be shoved aside to make room for anything new.

Needless to say, the last thing I have time for is dialing an extra three digits to make a local call, like we'll have to starting on Monday. Nor does room remain on my mental hard drive to file the four sickening new area codes being foisted upon us. (Doesn't 339 make 978 look like 212? And the others, 857, 774 and 351, aren't much to call home about either.)

What does the phone company think we are, computers?

I timed myself dialing the new Boston overlay, 857, and it took an entire second. Assuming a 20-call-a-day habit, we're talking 2 minutes a week, or two hours a year.

That's time that could be spent volunteering. But does the phone company care about the poor? Apparently not. (Nor do they care about what their little plan will do to the movies. Would ``Dial 1-339-M For Murder'' or, more likely, ``For Murder, press 1-339-M'' be a classic? I doubt it.)

Anyway, enjoying the last few days when I wouldn't have to dial a ``617,'' I called Verizon's spokesman, Jack Hoey.

``I don't have time to dial all those new digits,'' I told him.

I expected Hoey to challenge the degree of my busyness, but instead he simply pointed out that I already dial 11 digits whenever I call someone in the 781 or 978 area codes. (I couldn't have expected him to know that I dropped friends in those areas once the permissive dialing period ended.)

Shifting the argument to more comfortable ground, Hoey defended the overlay, explaining it was preferable to the alternate plan.

``The Department of Telecommunication and Energy would have had to draw a line through the city of Boston,'' he said. ``That's being Solomon, is it not?

``I would ask you to envision for a moment the debate that that would have engendered,'' he said, before letting out a long, long belly laugh at the thought.

D Street vs. Commonwealth Avenue. Hanover Street vs. Union Park. Hoey was right. It is delicious to ponder. Of the few things the public cares about, perhaps only ATM fees rank higher than area codes. Remember that great quote in 1984, when Staten Island lost its 212?

``Like a punishment from God,'' is how one resident described the slap.

I don't know if you've noticed, but whenever an area code plague strikes, the public always rails against the phone company, as if it were the devil incarnate.

But who's really to blame? You, my friend, and me. You with your cell phone and pager and computer modem and land line.

It's too late to turn back time, but I say from now on, area codes should be assigned not on geography, but on merit. I'm not going to mention any names, but I know a few people who don't deserve their 617s.

Calls will be monitored. One too many empty conversations - ``What's up with you?'' ``Nothing. How about you?'' ``Nothing. What's new?'' ``Not a whole hell of a lot.'' ``So how's it going?'' - and you'll be assigned a Scarlet Number, a 351 or a 774, a code so revealing you'll never give out your number again.