When you forget to dial “1” before an area code, a recorded message informs you that you “must first dial a ‘1’ before dialing this number.” If the little man in the phone can tell that the number requires a “1” in front of it, why do you first need to dial a “1”? –Reuben Gbogba, Berkeley, California
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The teachers in grade school must have hated you, Reuben. You’re absolutely right: if the switching computer is smart enough to figure out that the number needs a “1” in front of it (in other words, that it’s a long-distance number), it’s smart enough to put the call through. Same deal right after an area-code split. If you dial a no-longer-local number without putting the new area code in front of it, you get a message telling you to redial it with the area code first. But the computer is perfectly capable of figuring out what number you were trying to get and putting the call through. It just doesn’t want to–or rather, the phone company geniuses who program it don’t want to. On the contrary, they’re trying to teach you a lesson so next time you’ll do it right.
Your column is the only reason I pick up the [Los Angeles] Reader. However, I could not let the article on Swiss Army knives go unchallenged. There is no such thing as a Swiss Army. They are a neutral country and, as such, have no standing army. They do, however, have a national guard which uses their knives. From my own perspective, who cares? But as I’m sure you’d agree, the straight dope’s the straight dope only if it’s straight. –Jeff Birkenstein, Fountain Valley, California
