Editor's next demand will be 10-digit typing

The other day, a helpful editor suggested I might want to use today's column to explore the confusing topic of 10-digit dialing, which arrived in Manitoba Sunday.

That's just the way editors roll.

One minute, you, an innocent newspaper columnist, are engaged in professional journalism, flinging sharpened pencils at the ceiling tiles above your office cubicle to see how long it takes before one of them sticks, and the next minute an editor is suggesting your "research time" might be better spent discussing 10-digit dialing.

That is why today, as a public service, I am going to explain what 10-digit dialing means for you, the telephone-owning consumer. Without doing any actual research, I feel strongly that 10-digit dialing, which becomes mandatory on Oct. 20, is identical to our current system of seven-digit dialing, except it involves -- hold on while I get my calculator -- approximately three more digits.

Why is 10-digit dialing being introduced in Manitoba, a province where many of us still insist on our democratic right to communicate with each other by using long pieces of string with empty soup cans attached to either end?

The CRTC has an excellent reason for making this revolutionary change. Unfortunately, no one knows what it is. Ha ha ha. Just kidding. The CRTC's primary reason for implementing 10-digit dialing is very simple -- the CRTC hates you!

But, please, do not feel badly about this. The truth is, the CRTC hates EVERYONE because no one in this country has a clue what the initials CRTC stand for. If you ask the CRTC about the big change, they will tell you 10-digit dialing is being phased in -- along with a second area code, 431, on Nov. 3 -- because Manitoba is running out of telephone numbers, which is expected to happen by May 2013.

The big question is: Why are we running out of phone numbers? The experts say it's because of hip young people with their smartphones and iPads and other high-tech gadgets that gobble up phone numbers the way Lindsay Lohan gobbles up cranberry martinis at happy hour.

Which is why I always like to say: "Experts are a bunch of (very bad word) idiots!"

If you must know, the real blame lies with aging Baby Boomers such as myself who have to constantly get replacement phone numbers because, just like our eyeglasses and our car keys, we cannot remember where we put our old phone numbers.

This is only going to get worse now that, thanks to the CRTC, we Boomers are going to have to try to remember 10 digits instead of just seven when we attempt to call someone, forget who it is we have just dialed and, when a mystery voice answers at the other end of the line, angrily snort: "WHO AM I TALKING TO???"

Think I'm joking? Think it can't happen to you? Complete the following brief quiz to see if you are part of the problem:

1) Why are you standing around staring into the middle-distance?

2) What did you have for breakfast?

3) Did that traffic light just turn green?

4) Why don't they play anything good on the radio anymore?

If you even bothered to answer any of those skill-testing questions, it is probably your fault we will now have to dial 10 digits to make local calls. So thanks for that. We hope you and the CRTC will be very happy together.

Anyway, I hope today's column has been helpful. If you have any more questions about the switch to 10-digit dialing, feel free to give me a call. I'm pretty sure my number begins with a two.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 30, 2012 A2