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TMCNet: The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif., Kathe Tanner column [The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.]

[September 09, 2010]

The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif., Kathe Tanner column [The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.]

(Tribune (San Luis Obispo, CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 09--This column ran first in The Cambrian on March 30, 2006.

Dummy, dummy, dummy.

How many times will I look at a 924- telephone number in Cambria ... and dial 927- instead? I probably know the number by heart, or I've just looked it up. Still I misdial. When will I ever learn? It's the communications equivalent of knowing your hand is in the way and slamming the trunk lid anyway.

If the phone company had just added the 924- prefix to the mix recently, I could forgive myself for forgetting. After all, before it arrived, we'd all been on automatic pilot in Cambria, phone-wise. Nobody had to say the first three digits of their North Coast telephone number.

"Just call me at 1234" was all anybody needed. Everybody's number started with 927-. It was so simple.

Then the town grew. E-mail and fax lines began to chew up available number sequences. We ran out, and "they" added the 926- exchange for specialized communications equipment only.

Then 924- arrived for everyday phone lines, and our telecommunications irritations have multiplied ever since, like upper-body itches after a haircut.

Cell phones only magnify the problems. There's no one place any more where I can find out how to call somebody -- not 411, not the phone book, not the Internet.

And most phone numbers in the want ads no longer give me a clue about where the sellers live. That's no help when I'm trying to figure out before I call if I really want to drive that far to look at a used widget with a ding on one side.

Changes can drive me nuts so many ways.

How many times have I driven toward a specific place, only to find I've slipped a mental time cog and automatically turned into someplace where I used to work 10 or 20 years ago? You're not immune either, chum. What happened the last time you moved the living-room furniture around? The next night as you staggered out in the dark to get the book you forgot, an immovable object just leapt right out and bit you on the leg, didn't it? It hurts to think about it. During a couple of decades, every Tanner barked shins on my Mom's 800-pound gorilla, a rough-edged redwood table. It was a gorgeous, man-eating piece of furniture that gave us a lifetime of memories, instant-recall pain and a few permanent scars just below our kneecaps.

The consternation of change can lurk everywhere, even in an action as innocent as moving the Bengay menthol rub to the place where you used to store your toothpaste.

Those of us who aren't quite Mensa candidates at 5 a.m. usually spend the first couple of hours each day operating by rote, and rote doesn't like it much when things get moved about.

I also remember when Shirley Miller (Doerr) was launching the Grey Fox Inn in the old Souza house, where Robin's is today. Shirley was testing recipes and made a big sample batch of her famed hot-fudge sauce.

Her oh-so-willing taste tester took a mouthful of sundae and got a wild-eyed look in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Shirley asked.

"Mooohkadhjht," he said, and gulped. "I think you've got salt in your sugar canister." Thank heavens he caught it before she served it to paying customers! So, my failure to remember 924- prefixes when I'm dialing isn't a big thing, in the grand scheme of things. But I'm sure it's a pain for those of you on the receiving end.

So, let me issue a blanket, "I'm so sorry!" to anyone who's answered the phone in vain, and then had to tell me, "I think you dialed 927 by mistake." I also want to thank those of you who accepted my mistake with grace and a rueful laugh, or took the time to be helpful, offering up the right phone number. This had obviously happened to you before.

And, more than one prefix, Cambria's still a small town, thank heavens. (Hey, it still only has one Zip code.) A couple of times, I've gotten a 927- friend on the phone while trying to call a 924-buddy. My stupidity netted me two good chats instead of one! Patch us all together and we'd have a party line.

Which reminds me -- not so long ago, this area had lots of party lines and the old Cambria Phone Company, with Mabel Bright, Bertie Magetti or other operators plugged into the switchboard in what was then Walter Warren's red house on Center Street.

Then, if you called a pal, but didn't get an answer? Mabel would cut in. "He's not home, Susie. He's at the barber shop. I'll ring him for you." I'll bet she'd have remembered the 924-.

To see more of The Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sanluisobispo.com.

Copyright (c) 2010, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544)

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