FROM THE NEWSROOM
1-800-NOC-HNGE
By Blake Wolfe/The Scugog Standard

I won’t lie - I fear change.

Not moving to a new home, the surprises of a growing child, new responsibilities on the job or any of the other aspects of a life in transition. No, I handle those just fine, so much so I took on four or five of them at the same time this year.

It’s the little things. New e-mail, new car, new paint and especially new phone numbers. I haven’t changed my cell number (or cell company) in the six years since I’ve signed on and I don’t plan to unless an increase in services - or a decrease in cost - is on offer. Hopefully, the president of a company that’s name sounds like ‘tell us’ is reading.

My folks - who, in three weeks or so, will be en route to a new house in our neck of the woods - will finally have a different phone number after almost 30 years with the same 10 digits. Not likely a world record, but a big/little change regardless. That said, I’ll probably still be calling their Newmarket number out of habit for at least a few weeks.

I can dial that particular number blindfolded or recite the 10 tones in order from memory, and will probably be able to do so forever. Until now, I don’t recall ever having to keep their number written on the back of an old water bill or fast food napkin containing those important listings that is to never be more than a foot away from the phone itself, lest all hell break loose and one actually has to dig out the phonebook if pizza’s on the dinner menu.

They’re not living, breathing things, but a phone number is always just in the background, withstanding birthdays, anniversaries, deaths and moves and every other milestone, the password required to deliver those announcements to and fro, outlasting several generations of phones in many cases (I counted at least six).

And like dad’s T-bird, that tree in the backyard or any other fixture of many years, a long-lived listing isn’t truly appreciated until it’s been reassigned. And some people are downright religious about them.

Apparently, some Torontonians are vomiting in abject fear of a third yet-to-be-determined area code in Hogtown, terrified that they may wind up with the newest, and therefore dreaded, three-digit prefix.

Some even treat a 416 number as a symbol of divine providence, a lowly 647 on par with the Mark of The Beast and a 905 not even among the remotest of possibilities. Those people are clearly of an IQ made up of only two of the numbers in that auspicious area code (you can pick the combination), but it speaks to the power of the phone number and in this case, the regional identity it can represent, once the domain of tribal markings and coats of arms. Having a 905 isn’t that bad, is it?

But I’m not the first to wax philosophical on the matter. There was an entire Seinfeld episode centered around the pursuit of maintaining an original 212 New York City area code.

The biopic of American Spendor writer Harvey Pekar also beat me to the punch a few years back, with a lengthy scene that detailed the comic writer’s fascination with the other Harvey Pekars that he saw listed in the Cleveland phonebook over the years. Living up to the series’ paraphrased tagline of ordinary life being pretty complex stuff, Harvey (or at least the actor portraying Harvey) pondered everything from what lives his supposed alter-egos lived to the essence of existence itself.

Not surprising for a self-described grouch like Harvey. He was also annoyed with being relegated to an initial and a last name in the White Pages while, across town, his namesake, much like my parents for many years, enjoyed a ‘pure listing’ - a phone number preceded by a full name. In the case of my folks’ new number, I’m the other ‘Blake Wolfe’ listed in Durham.

And to the new recipients of our old number - be expecting my call.