Today’s post is an oldie from The Traveling Circus. I decided to re-share because I recently just changed cell phone providers and after three years in Jersey I was STILL angsting over my damn number! I kept my Maryland digits because at this point no one’s cell phones match their state. It’s almost like we keep our cell numbers as a piece of home. Anyway, I thought it was funny to reread where I was a few years ago. It’s crazy to think about what was so important-ha! Enjoy and let me know if you have had any digit dilemmas of your own.
This move has presented an unexpected dilemma which in turn has forced me to face some embarrassing quirks that I have.
I love peoples’ stories. Growing up in such a transient area has conditioned me to ask the standard questions, “how’d you get here? and why do you stay?”. You could call it nosey. I’m sure some people who have met me already do. But I think nosey has too negative a connotation. I am not seeking information for judgement or anything bad. I am genuinely intrigued with the journeys that people take during their lives.
The embarrassing part is that I take this information and store bits away. Then, I value it way more than I should-as intelligence. For example, I can pick out almost any accent, no matter how faint, and 90% of the time correctly locate it’s origin. Secretly (until now at least) I am quite proud of this. Lame I know, but not nearly as lame as my knowledge of… area codes. Oh yes, I think I’m quite the smarty pants because I can tell you 616 is a Michigan number and I knew my New Jersey number would start with 732 long before we even looked at the first house in that section of the state. (And you thought accents knowledge was lame!)
While I love the back-story, I am also of the mind that when you move to a place you should really move there-area code and all. I have found the increasing popularity of cell phones disturbing of late. I don’t like all the area codes I have in my cell phone address book. This is especially true because it doesn’t make me exotic, with friends all across the lower 48. No, it just means I have neighbors who moved here from at least 20 different states. I think these people should change their numbers, all of them, when they move. Enough of this cross state area coding. (See, I told you this was embarrassing.)
So, here is my dilemma: now that I’m the mover, do I change my number and become a true Jersey resident? I mean, if I don’t I still have ties to Maryland that will make it hard for me to commit. But, if I do change then no one from home can call me for free. What’s a Maryland born, Jersey girl to do?
What I do know for sure, if this is the biggest dilemma this move causes, then I’m in pretty good shape.
Even if I am crazy.
