Mastodawn

I was at a shoe store recently, and the cashier asked for a phone number and I replied that I didn't want to give them one.

"We need it for our system" she says, as if that was some sort of convincing argument.

"Okay, use 613 555 1212," I said.

"Umm, are you John? I've got 13 people here under that number."

She seemed oblivious to the number and its function/history, and why people are offering it.

Fennix Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross

Man, years ago I knew all the dialback numbers for area codes in Canada and some northern states.

@fennix oh yes, I remember also knowing that one that produced an automated voice telling you your phone number. Forgotten now, but likely easily found online.

Fennix Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross
I used to use the dialback number to make banks of payphones all ring. Y'know, for shenanigans.

@fennix ha! Great fun.

The S Kate M 💛💙Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross @fennix reminds me of that British TV show “The IT Crowd” when the 999 emergency number changes to some insane number of digits (apparently: 0118 999 881 999 119 7253) and the Moss character tells his colleagues about it having memorized the jingle.

@skatem ha! Accurately captured our NA sense of UK numbers. @fennix

Fennix Sep 1, 2025

@skatem @ottaross

My personal fav. bit of that show was emailing the fire department. Close runner up was Moss' "They're not for sale" line.

The S Kate M 💛💙Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross @fennix haha! I also like the football episode where Moss listens to a tutorial on how to talk about the topic. “Did you see that ludicrous display…?”

Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴‍♂️📷 🗺️Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross

FWIW

@the5thColumnist ha! It's a passive/aggressive do not call us.

Mark Connolly moved to @[email protected]Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross @justinto Maybe she could call the number to get more information 😀

@uxmark @justinto "Hello is John there?"

John Francis 🇨🇦🦫🍁💪⬆️Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross @uxmark @justinto "Yes, dozens of Johns. Which one you looking for?"

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦Sep 2, 2025

@ottaross 😂 Same!

Paul Turnbull has moved.🇨🇦Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross I thought I knew but I was wrong, so I didn’t know. :)

@Chigaze you see it in movies a lot too, where they need to show a phone number on screen and don't want to flood some poor soul in Albuquerque with calls.

Paul Turnbull has moved.🇨🇦Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross I knew about the fictitious number usage of the 555 prefix however I did not know that there were numbers with that prefix that had real uses.

derptron Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross Why do you have my girlfriend's number?

@crazyeddie lol

isaiah Sep 1, 2025

@ottaross proof that the mastodon population skews very old

@isaiah It does rather.

@ottaross Hmm I guess I answered wrong, because I thought 555 numbers were just reserved for movies etc and weren't real.

Ross of Ottawa Sep 2, 2025

@mariellequinton they were convenient for movies as they'd just give you information if someone dialed them.

Functionality it was the way to reach information in a specific area, so if you were here in area 613 and wanted to get information for Vancouver you would dial 604 555 1212 and get a local person's number look up there.

@ottaross I've never heard of that. It was just dial 0 or later dial 411. I wonder how much it was actually used. Maybe you had to be an adult in the 70s or 80s? Parents probably didn't want kids playing around with that number 😝

Ross of Ottawa Sep 2, 2025

@mariellequinton there were more fun numbers – one that makes your phone ring after you hang up, or one where a voice tells you your own phone number.

@ottaross Yeah, I remember that stuff. The 80s were really boring. Sometimes you'd pay attention when a technician came by to check the phones/lines and could use whatever number they used to test something.

A quick look, and wow that's a badly written Wikipedia article, shows mostly telephone companies refused to use 555 prefixes even if they were allowed to. So they probably didn't work but maybe sometimes they did.

David B.

Sep 2, 2025

@mariellequinton @ottaross Oh wait? They were not just for movies?

@David @ottaross Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one 😝 As far as I can tell. Yes, most 555 numbers were left unused by telephone companies for fictional uses like movies but some 555 numbers were real and were informational like (XXX) 555-1212 which was used for phone number lookup outside of your area code. I guess it just connected you to the operator in the XXX area code.

David B.

Sep 2, 2025

@ottaross I learned this watching Last Action Hero.

SnackTraces Sep 2, 2025

@ottaross

The number that sticks in my mind, other than this one, is the number for the local PBS TV station. They would plaster it all over the screen during pledge drives. I watched Mister Rogers and Sesame Street so often that I have that number in my noggin.