I remember when it was just 206 and 509. Actually, Seattle was one of the last cities in the country to give up named exchanges. Even in the 80's It used to be not uncommon to see numbers here listed like EA3-5555 (Eastlake) and MU2-3000 (Mutual).

@1

You youngsters with your fancy "named exchanges," you've got no sense of history at all.

You'll never know what it was like in the good old days when the ladies would ask "Number Please?" when you lifted the earpiece...

robotslave dear, when I was just a wee Catalina back in Council Bluffs Iowa, if you played with the phone too much, an operator would come on the line and ask you what was going on. If you were a child, she would tell you that the telephone was not a toy and that the police would be called to your home if you continued, which was of course terrifying.

@3

Ugh, and a filthy transplant, too. Driving up our rents!

aha. just like when NYC lost 212. why are people so attached to area codes?

Yes, robotslave dear, it's true: As I have mentioned on many occasions, I am a native of Iowa, but have spent much of my life here in Seattle. My first visit was in 1975 at the tender age of 10, where I - a product of benign older parents who had no helicopter instinct whatsoever - was allowed to roam free-range in Downtown Seattle for great lengths of time (just as I was back home in Downtown Omaha, and in Manhattan from time to time). After many visits, I finally moved here in the mid 80's, and have inflicted my homespun heartland values on the city ever since.

@6

Wait, you're not even 55 years old yet? Just another insufferable Gen-X Seattle squatter?

You're going to feel pretty damn silly about this old-lady act of yours one day, when you have to deal with the hard realities of old age.

"Dear."

Oh robotslave, how you do prattle on! I'm flattered that you consider me "Gen-X". I've always thought of myself as part of the last dregs of the baby boomers.

As for being a "Seattle squatter", let me quietly murmur, as I many times have, that the native born of Washington are not uniformly bright. (I blame Hanford.) You needed people like me to point out that you really shouldn't dump your garbage in the sound, no matter what granpaw did. That had nothing to do with rent. So let's not quibble about that, dear.

Speaking of the term "dear", you're apparently yet another one of those people who object to me calling people "dear". Could it be that you are one of the moderns who strive to find an insult in anything you can? If so, you can be sure I'll light a candle for you tonight. You need all the help you can get.

@3 - Yes! The omniscient operator. We used to tap the phone carriage a couple times, get the operator and tell her that our phone wasn't ringing and could she call us back to test it. She would and we children would let mother answer...she would of course deny she'd ever called to have the ringer tested, the operator would insist she had and hilarity would ensue. Ah youth.

Eh, you young whippersnappers and your antics. In my day, we'd pick up the line and listen in to what the neighbors were gossiping about - they didn't call them "party lines" for naught. And I've little doubt the operator was engaging in the same surreptitious activity, but of course she (and yes, it was always a she) would have been far too discreet to reveal her presence.

@8

No, dear, it's not a matter of being a modern, it's a matter of recognizing an affectation as a fig leaf for the rather ugly condescension you're serving up to nearly everyone you address in our little discussion parlor.

I get it, lots of people use the internet as a safe place to be an asshole; often they just need to get it out of their systems. And that's fine! But don't for a moment think you've managed to hide that bitterness and contempt of yours with this cloying little act.

@11:

Just because you don't like your new area code is no reason to take it out on our sweet Mrs. Vel-DuRay, dear.

Mrs. VDR -- Please do ignore the young ruffian. He's probably in the delirium of a laudanum withdrawl. The rest of us are so very fond of you, the loveliest conversationalist in the room.

I happen to have dual citizenship, being able to claim both the "native" and "non-native" Washingtonian moniker. Technically I was born in Tacoma, a fact I can (and do!) omit as the situation merits, as I spent all but about three weeks of my youth in Colorado. I don't know know what my mother was thinking, moving with a newborn...

But it's definitely way cooler to be able to say "yeah, that's right -- native-Coloradoan in the house, bitchez!"

303 forevah' !!!

@11: finding oneself a target of Mrs. Vel-DuRay is usually a sign that it's time to check yourself.

I wish they would invent something so you could just point your finger at the name of the person you wanted to talk to and it would dial for you, so you didn't have to tap out all those digits every time. Or even you could just say out loud "Call my gastroenterologist!" and the gizmo would just know who that was, and dial whatever the number is.

All these area codes. Everything keeps changing. I can't cope.

Oh now, Our Dear robotslave is just high-spirited and vivacious. We're lucky to have him in our little slog. He had a little quarrel with me (I think he might have been drinking) but that's all water under the bridge.

The thing that used to bother me the most about the dial phones was you would get all the way through some number like 19898999989, which took approximately four hours, only to screw up the last number, so you'd have to start all over again.

And remember station-to-station (versus person-to-person) long-distance calls? I had a roommate who's dad would always place a person-to-person call to our apartment when he wanted roommate to return the call. He's always ask for Ludwig (he was a professor of music)

And the horrible, horrible women the phone company used to employ to make credit calls if you were late on your bill? We could use a few of them nowadays to threaten North Korea.

Catalina, this is the first time I've seen you make a grammatical mistake. However, realizing that I've been reading your writings for such a long time with no past evidence of such, I think instead it was simply a typo, and you know that it is "whose", not "who's."

@16 +1. And if only you could order food on such a device, or cruise for a hookup. And get directions when outside showing your exact location. And watch movies / TV shows read the news"paper" on it :)

And to think they promised us jet packs and flying cars! (isn't an iOS or Android device actually more useful and amazing than a jetpack?)

Sarah dear, I confess that I always have trouble with the who's/whose thing. I also have problems with the spelling of the words thorough and bureaucrat, and disgust for the words moist, ointment, and buffeteria (which I don't even think is a word, but it is something you used to see quite frequently in the Midwest.)

Nobody rolled out the old Almost Live skit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9jlo4Ht…

206 747-xxxx read it and weep, that's my cell number, cause I'm Will Seattle

(ROFLMAO)

Goodnight Seattle, and good mental health.

Do you all have to dial 1 + the area code + the number to reach someone in your own area code yet? We do in San Francisco.
If not, just wait until you have to reprogram ALL your local numbers into your phone.

Yep. Pre 425'er. I only wish we had number portability back in the early 00s, I'd still be rocking my 206 phone.

I just came here to say that Catalina is a treasure and the Almost Live skit was ace.

I lived in the 509 when it was just that and the 206.