On a related note (it seems to be stupid-Bitt-stories night) ....

A few years back, I had a pager issued to me by my employer. For the sake of this conversation, let's say that it's number was 800-987-6543. Shortly after I got it, I started getting pages two or three times a day that would just be ``485'' and nothing else. Odd.

One day, I got a page that was ``4859195551212''. Noticing that it looked like that standard ``485'' that I'd been getting, plus what looked like a real phone number, I decided to give that number a call. Someone answered and I said, ``I believe someone there paged me.''

To which he responded, ``Oh. You must be Panasonic support.''

``Uhhhh.... No. What number did you dial?''

``1-800-987-6543-485''

``What?''

``I was told to call 1-800-987-6543-485.''

``Are you sure they didn't tell you to call area code 987, 654-3485?''

``What?''

``The number they gave you -- it's not an 800 number -- it's a standard long-distance number. Didn't you notice that there were three additional digits?''

``What??''

The conversation went on like this for another five minutes or so before I just gave up.

I continued to get similar pages, not all from the same guy. I'd call and make fun of people when I could deduce a phone number from their otherwise incoherent pages.

I finally had to get a new pager.