it's just a little thing really

I see that our neighbors in Northern Ontario will soon be going through the adding-an-area-code process. Soon they'll have to dial all 10 digits of a phone number.

I've lived in two different places that had to add area codes and in both cases the more populated parts of the region kept the old area code and the less populated regions had to switch.

Maybe adding area codes should be thought of as progress -- that so many new devices are being connected to the phone network that you need to add a new area code. But to the curmudgeonly types, it's not good progress. (I lived in a place as in the 1970s in which we only had to dial 5 numbers since there was only 2 prefixes and some people didn't like the new nuisance of dialing -- and this was when it really was 'dialing' -- all 7 numbers.)

Unless I'm totally out of touch with such things, I don't think we are facing an imminent addition of area code here in the UP. The entire UP is 906 and only the UP is 906. I think we still have plenty of room in 906 for phone devices so I think (hope) we'll all get to stay 906 for some time. I like that consistency. I guess I'm maybe a bit of a curmudgeon that way. (Could we make money selling space on 906 for people who don't want to face an area code change? But then we'd get so many that we'd have to add another area code. So on second thought, let's not sell space on 906.)

Numbers can represent places. Unfortunately I cannot help but know what place has the 90210 zip code. In the same way, could 906 stand for the UP? In a previous post, I mentioned the Euro-style, two- or three-letter oval stickers people use to show off their attachment to their place. I have a UP sticker on both our vehicles. Would 906 stickers be too obtuse?