The 411 on 818

[Note: This column originally appeared in a shorter version in the April 16, 2009 edition of the former Crescenta Valley Sun newspaper – a Times-owned publication.]

This Saturday, April 18, the way we make calls from the 818 area code is changing. Yep, because life already isn’t complicated enough, starting tomorrow, every number we dial will require at least ten digits. I’m not kidding, from Saturday on, any and all phone numbers we call from this area code – from your next door neighbor to the gleaming global headquarters of the Crescenta Valley Sun – will require ten digits or more.

What chucklehead thought this was a good idea, anyway?

Actually, the new mandatory use of our own 818 area code in dialing is due to the California Public Utilities Commission’s approval to add a new area code overlay, 747, to the same geographic area covered by the 818 area code. Confused? Join the club.

According to the telecommunications technocrats, we’re close to running out of unassigned 818 phone numbers due to the ever-growing number of new cell phones, fax machines, security systems, pagers, land lines and internet connections coming online every day. (The fact that hundreds of thousands of unused phone numbers are kept “off the market” for possible future sale to specialized groups/companies, etc. doesn’t seem to matter to the bureaucrats who never met an ordinance they didn’t want to pass.)

This has been happening locally since 1957 when the 805 area code was assigned to Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, all formerly in the 213 area code. In 1984, the Crescenta Valley, Glendale and Burbank lost our 213 exchange and – along with the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys – have comprised the 818 area code ever since.

However, unlike in 1984, this time we all get to keep our existing phone numbers. So, address books, business cards, stationary – all stay the same. However, since there will soon be new local phone numbers with the 747 area code, we “818”ers need to actually dial 818 to call each other. Whew, it sure is getting complicated to communicate.

Then again, I’m old enough to remember – barely – rotary dial phones, too. I also remember when my maternal grandparents moved away from their beloved but increasingly congested Glendale to the rural south San Diego county town of Escondido, where at the time, avocado groves outnumbered residents.

To visit Grandma and Grandpa required a three hour drive. Calling between our two homes was considered “long distance,” which meant whoever initiated the call was charged extra by the minute. Both my grandparents and parents would do just about anything not to pay that extra cost, so upon arrival home after a visit, instead of calling and saying a hurried, “stop worrying, we made it home!” my mom or grandma would call the other’s home number, let it ring twice – only twice – and then hang up. This was code that they were safely home. And because the other party didn’t pick up the ringing phone, it was not a completed call and therefore, wasn’t charged to the calling party. Can you say, “cheap?” Or, excuse me … frugal.

Considering this, it’s quite ironic that each of my kids had their own personal cell phone before they were out of elementary school. Okay, now can you say, “spoiled”? Then again, social and technological developments like this are precisely why so many phone numbers across this great gadget-loving land are already used up. Guilty as charged, your honor.

Heck, today even my dear mother – the same one for whom a 1-minute “we’re-home-safely” call to Escondido was too expensive – has her own cell phone. The truth is, my wife and I added a line for mom onto our own family cell plan so she could stay in touch when traveling, or if she has car trouble, or whatever. And yet, even though it doesn’t cost her a nickel to use, she doesn’t use it. The thing almost never leaves her purse for fear of spending a few cents that don’t need to be spent.

No matter how often I try to explain to her that her use of the phone is already paid for, whether or not she uses it, doesn’t seem to register. And so the phone stays in her purse, turned off. I guess if old habits die hard, frugal ones are downright immortal. Of course, the other consequence of her inability to take advantage of the technology is that – inevitably – the few times in the past several years that she actually has had a need and/or desire to make a call on her cell phone, it hasn’t worked because the battery was dead when she turned it on. Sigh.

When it comes to communications technology, like many things, I guess change is inevitable. So the fact that we will now have to dial ten numbers to make even local calls should be no big deal. However, I can’t help but think Ma Bell is turning over in her deregulated grave at the thought of neighbors needing to dial a marathon of digits to talk to each other.

I’d call somebody to complain, but … I don’t have time to dial all those numbers.  See you ‘round town.

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