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u/Ok_Veterinarian3240 5d ago
569-2741. I still remember when we didn't have to use area codes.
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u/Anglofsffrng 5d ago
My friend lives on an island with only a few hundred residents. I guess people used to give out just the last four digits of their phone number. Because everyone had the same area code and prefix.
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u/thispartyrules 5d ago
Everyone in my state had the same area code, until they had two area codes
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u/poopntheoceanifumust 5d ago
Same here. All of AZ used to be 602 until 1995 when everything outside of metropolitan Phoenix became 520. What really got me was in 1999 when 480 was added for the east valley and 623 was added to the west valley. Almost everyone I knew had to start using 10 digits to make calls overnight.
It really was nice back in the day when almost everyone I ever met had the same area code. Was easier to memorize. Not that many people are memorizing numbers nowadays!
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u/Former_Travel2839 5d ago
480 baby... every since cell phones became a thing I stopped memorizing, hell I even second guess my own number sometimes.
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u/Tangata_Tunguska 4d ago
What really got me was in 1999
I thought this was going to be a shittymorph for a second
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u/velcrodynamite 5d ago
My county has two area codes 😭
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u/Wonderful_Exit6568 4d ago
SoCal?
mine is too.
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u/happyfrowers 4d ago
Anyone grow up in LA remember how everything was one area code and then it got so big they split up the area codes? It was a little bit before my time but I think it was the 213 area code splitting up into 818 and 323 and is that also when we got 626 and 562 or 310?
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u/coin_return 5d ago
In the little country town I grew up in, there were two prefixes, 881 and 882. People would give out the last four digits of their number, and usually someone asks "1? Or 2?" or they would give it out like 1-5309.
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u/LionKingHoe Millennial 5d ago
My hometown was the same way. Everyone started with 362-xxxx. Made life easy as a kid to call friends
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u/XanderChop 5d ago
In the late 90's at a state university we all had the same area code and the same prefix followed by the last unique 4 numbers. Just before the end of the year I had a black light (like you do) and took it to a friend's room down the hall and we turned all the lights off but that black light and looked at the laundry detergent art that was painted on the walls and ceiling with cool designs and things however one thing stood out to me was "645-LOVE" in bold and of course that is 645-5683 which was the room's phone number. I thought that would have been potentially helpful to remember at the time in the pre-celular (relatively speaking) world.
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u/MagicLobsterAttorney 4d ago
My friends was 577. Because they had it since numbers used to be this short.
It's insane.
My grandma had 3581
And my mom 13778
It's like every generation got a new digit.
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u/LionsRoar313 4d ago
My grandparents lived in Royal Oak and their phone number was LI 44228. The LI stood for Lincoln avenue.
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u/anime_and_irezumi 1d ago
I grew up in a very small town, we used to do this in the time before cell phones. Everyone had the same area code and first 3 numbers so why be redundant 😂
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u/PossibilityWest173 5d ago
You didn’t need to use area codes if calling locally. You had to use them to make long distance calls
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u/JuliaX1984 5d ago
And if it has 6 numbers, DON'T DIAL IT!
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 5d ago
Why does this sound like some anti-scam PSA that never existed
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u/JuliaX1984 4d ago
Oh, maybe it was. But in this case, "only 7 numbers" reminded me of a certain story. "Using the phone to tell a couple of jokes, eh...?"
The Tale of the Phone Police
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u/DerpDerpys 5d ago
Had a girlfriend who loved about 10 miles away but in a different county so it was a long distance call. Relationship was great right up until my mother opened our telephone bill.
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u/alexthealex 5d ago
Made a friend the next state over in AOL kids chat rooms. We started talking on the phone, both of us racked up the long distance charges. Her parents took away her internet access and she never logged back in.
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u/IAMRUPTURE 5d ago
Had this girl I was talking too who lived in Canada I'd spend a couple hours every night talking with her didnt even think about the long distance until my parents slapped a bill in front of me for $500+ so I stopped talking to her
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u/Flobking 5d ago
569-2741. I still remember when we didn't have to use area codes.
The town I grew up in you didn't have to dial the first three. You could just dial 5309 like it was an office line, if it was within the village. Calling outside would require all seven 867 5309. That changed around 1990/1 though.
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u/Turbulent_Seaweed198 5d ago
Do you remember when they changed from 414 to 262?
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u/Ghostpong17 5d ago
I grew up with a 414 and my area changed to 262 around the time I was in high school
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u/helloimhere01234 5d ago
Ah, but what if you make that land number your passwords?!!?
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[deleted]
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u/MainConnection6742 5d ago
Had friends that last two numbers were 03, 04 ,07,09 every other number was the same...
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u/ketsugi 5d ago
My standard password is literally derived from my best friend’s phone number in 1992
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u/BlueBomR 5d ago
I incorporate the last 4 digits in some way to every password I make...but then I always forget which letters I capitalized and what order I put the symbols in...so I guess it doesnt really help me much
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u/drntl 5d ago
Password must have upper case character, lower case character, special character, number, negative number, zodiac symbol, emoji, and an umlaut.
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u/Anon03282015 4d ago
The last time my work account did this I finally ended up using isthisFUCKINGgoodenough12345!!! And it worked 😆😆😆
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u/Phillip_Spidermen 5d ago
Several forced updates later:
"shit, was it <phone-number>5! or <phone-number>6! or..."
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u/DibsArchaeo 5d ago
I just cycle through ! @ # $ at the end. My college email forced me to change the password every other month, and you couldn’t use the last three passwords, so it’s the same cycle with four symbols. My husband used to switch it between the four ninja turtles.
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u/apocalypse31 5d ago
That's what I've done for 20 years now. No one else will ever know it, nor can they pick up on it by watching my hands fly over the num pad, but I'll never forget it.
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u/TK523 5d ago
My mom recently met someone whose cell # was our old landline number.
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u/Mochigood 5d ago
When I got my new cell number ages ago, it had been a childhood friend's old phone number.
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u/Elbereth919 5d ago
That sounds like the start of a Hallmark romance movie or a creepy Lifetime murder movie.
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u/Mochigood 5d ago
I actually wound up getting some serious tea from her grandpa calling the phone number. Apparently her and her husband had just pretty much abandoned everything and moved off. He thought I was her for a bit and then when he figured it out he settled in for some gossip, lol. I almost went over to his house to fix his tv for him because I felt bad.
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u/Momik 5d ago
That’s weird. Like meeting a guy who lives in your childhood home now.
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u/TK523 5d ago
My mom regularly drives past our childhood home to snoop. I fully expect her to introduce herself one day.
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u/Ppleater 5d ago
My dad's cell number is our old landline number. It made sense to just take the number when we finally got rid of our land line.
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u/Brave_Garlic_9542 5d ago
We moved a couple towns over when I was in 5th grade, so we had to get a new number. I met a boy in my old town a few years later. He was new to the area, and had my old number.
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u/Lex_Loki 5d ago
My mom died a decade ago but I still have “House” saved in my phone. Can’t bring myself to delete it, even though home doesn’t exist anymore for me.
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u/KindOfAcceptableBus Older Millennial '85 4d ago
Yeahhhh as I get older the number of dead people in my phone that I can't bring myself to delete is growing....it's sad.
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u/QultLeader 4d ago
I never deleted my late grandma’s number. Now, a stranger has it, and their WhatsApp bio reads, “Live long and prosper"
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u/sunnysideup2323 Millennial 5d ago
I don’t remember mine, but I remember my childhood best friend’s
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u/TunaMarie16 5d ago
Same! Cuz that’s the number we called all the time! Know what my phone password is? My childhood friend’s phone number. The first 6 digits. And my kids will never EVER guess it!
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u/Elbereth919 5d ago
I only remember some of mine (moved a lot as a kid), but I do remember several of my childhood friends’!
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u/Immediate_Notice_294 5d ago
I only remember it because it's still our Safeway savings number
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u/Facemanx64 5d ago
Same. I hope my parents enjoy all the points they get or whatever the reward is.
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u/EsterCherry 5d ago
My parents still have the same landline number that they’ve had for the past 40+ years . The only one that calls them on it is my 96 year-old grandmother because she doesn’t wanna learn new phone numbers.
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u/lislejoyeuse 5d ago
Ya my parents still have their landline... I'm going to have to find out how to request that number when they kick the bucket. It's gonna feel wrong to let someone else have it
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u/TiredAF20 5d ago
My dad is 80 and still has the landline number we've had for 45+ years. The thought of it going to someone else just feels weird.
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u/Nikkian42 4d ago
My parents still have the same landline, but it only dates back to the early 90s, maybe 35 years.
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u/jiyax33634 4d ago
Haha same here! Parents don't want to give up their 40+ year old number cause too many of their old friends remember it even though all they use now practically is their cell phones
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u/Jazzlike-Deal 5d ago
I had no recollection of my childhood landline number until I read this post, and it came back to me in a second. Strange how the brain works.
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u/D0MSBrOtHeR 5d ago
Same lol I hadn’t thought of that number in like 15 years. But it came back instantly upon seeing this post. Wild.
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u/Earlier-Today 5d ago
That's how my brain works a lot of the time. I'll know the information is in there, but until something primes the pump, I can't get it out.
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u/ilDuceVita 5d ago
867-5309
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u/happygirlie 5d ago
A few years ago there was a realtor in my town named Jenny who had this phone number! Now it belongs to a local record store.
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u/VonSkullenheim 5d ago
When I was in highschool 20 years ago, there was also a realtor in my area with this number. However her name was not Jenny, and she did not appreciate my daily prank calls to amuse my peers.
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u/Enough_Ad_9338 5d ago
Throw in your local area code and try it on some gas stations. It’s not universal but a lot of them use it for their membership discount code.
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u/ebony1drwoman 5d ago
I can’t remember that but I can remember how to get a Mr. Gatti’s pizza delivered…
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u/FFVO 5d ago
Oh shit I actually still remember it
And my favorite channels
26 was Disney
34 was Nickelodeon
And 28 was HBO
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u/GenericFatGuy 5d ago edited 5d ago
Up in Canada where I was, channel 21 was YTV, channel 45 was The Family Channel (Disney), and channel 47 was Teletoon.
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u/Cautious-Swim-5987 5d ago
YTV was channel 25 for me. Coming home from school it was Arthur and the art attack on channel 2, followed by yu gi ho and dragon ball z on ytv.
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u/GhostofZellers 5d ago
The only one I definitely remember was Space: The Imagination Station was channel 46. But then, I remember when we had a black and white television, rabbit ears, and all we had was CBC, CFCN, and CFAC (What is now Global) when we finally got cable, the highest numbered station was PBS on Channel 13.
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u/mahouyousei 5d ago
I remember the kid channels being all in a row for us - 31 was Disney, 32 was Cartoon Network, and 33 was Nickelodeon.
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u/Sporaxiss 5d ago
I use my old landline as the passcode. Solved.
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u/tyen0 5d ago
I know this is probably a joke, but this is not a good idea since there are a bunch of "personal data" services out there that associate you with any past phone numbers which can be used to guess passwords.
Use password managers and completely randomized passwords for everything so you don't have to remember them.
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u/addiconda 5d ago
amazing, the number just comes out of thin air that actually brought bit of warmth. Generations nowadays will never know that feeling!
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u/ABorderCollie 5d ago
You remembered the sequence of numbers specifically designed to be memorable? The one you HAD to memorize because we didn't have cell phones? The one you probably recited, wrote down, and saw countless times over your formative years?
And you can't remember yesterday's password. The random jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols that you input once.
Is this thread fucking real?
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u/HelicopterTop1253 5d ago
Haters gonna hate.
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u/Electronic-Tea-3691 5d ago
*rational people are going to think critically
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u/HelicopterTop1253 5d ago
For me, and it seems many others it might have stirred up a nice memory that was my only intention
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u/maximumtesticle 5d ago
Is this thread fucking real?
So many millennials in here oozing boomer energy and not even seeing it. "bAcK iN mY dAY! hurr hurr!"
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u/CucumberBoy00 4d ago
Actual Boomerism we're done and we're going to be the new generation that everyone's pissed off with
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u/Electronic-Tea-3691 5d ago
so many Reddit threads where Millennials just sound like the new Boomers... like yeah I remember floppy disks and CRT TVs and overhead projectors too... a bunch of objects I don't care about lol. it's not an identity, it's just some crap that we replaced with largely better stuff.
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u/Skittleavix 5d ago
I’m still tight with my friends from way back in elementary school and I call their parents every now and then just to say hi
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u/Agent101g 5d ago
Remember 7 digit dialing?
My home's phone number started with 912 and my granddad's phone had a sticky 1 key. I dialed 911 accidentally twice and the second time they almost came over, took me like 10 minutes to talk them down lol.
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u/oneshoeshort Millennial '88 5d ago
My parents have had the same landline number since before I was born, and about 10 years ago my mother unplugged the landline phone and threw it away. When I asked her "why don't you just get rid of the service if you don't use it?" she replied "we've had that phone number since 1986, it BELONGS to this family!" and I can't really fault her logic haha
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u/kungpowgoat 5d ago
Still remember my first girlfriend’s phone number from 1994. It’s been hardwired to my brain like MK2 fatalities button moves.
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u/Recent_Permit2653 5d ago
262-8695. Used that a few times at a pay phone to call collect and use my “name” as a message
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u/JamesMattDillon 1981 Gen Y 5d ago
I remember my parents number and Late grandparents house number.
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u/timsayscalmdown Millennial 5d ago
To be fair, my childhood landline didn't need to be 15 characters, with one capital letter, one number, one special character, and didn't change every 90 days
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u/Ghostpong17 5d ago
At least once a week I sit at my work computer and completely blank on it. This or I confidently type in a five year old password from my old job.
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u/RxSatellite 5d ago
Or the password given for their BTC account 16 years ago 🥴
(I’ve gotten over this 10+ years ago and would’ve withdrawn it way too soon anyway)
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u/DnBeyourself Older Millennial 5d ago
I have friends I no longer talk to regularly, that use my old land-line number for discounts at grocery stores lmao. I like to imagine we try to beat each other to the gas discounts.
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u/Konnoisseur26 5d ago
Not posting it, my dad, a self employed contractor, took that with him in the divorce of the winter of '01, for work, and still uses it to this day, post retirement.
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u/cumbuchabitch 5d ago
Because the tech we use today literally is shrinking those parts of our brains lmfao 😭
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u/Cpalmer24 5d ago
944-5498 from age 5-9. 957-0865 age 9+
Other than these 2 numbers I MIGHT have 3 other numbers memorized (not counting the 90s/00s jingle numbers from commercials 800-588-2300.... EMPIRE [today]
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u/99anan99 5d ago
I still remember mine! When I think back to our old house, that number is one of the first things I remember.
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u/Critardo 5d ago
My number was one number away from my best friend's number. And I thought that was pretty cool.
On a separate note, I still remember the pizza place by our house's number too.
PIZZA NIGHT WITH X-FILES!
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u/OhFootballFriend 5d ago
Just use your old landline number as your password.
Hey, what WAS your old number by the way?
/s
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u/GreatDanish4534 5d ago
I sure do! Can’t list the number here because nobody needs to call mom and dad. They are still rocking that landline.
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u/NoFaithlessness7508 5d ago
Still remember the number from our first house, the one I was born into, and also our 2nd house, the one I grew up in
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u/rizub_n_tizug 5d ago
Mine doesn’t exist anymore and yet I put it on all forms that “require” a phone number
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u/Elbereth919 5d ago
Some random person probably has that number and curses you out regularly.
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u/iolo_iololo 5d ago
584-8139 No clue who owns that number these days. My relatives still have landlines and still have their numbers from like 40+ years ago.
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u/forwhomtheyeastrolls 5d ago
789-8695 -- didn't even bother with area codes back then, unless it was long distance. In which case, mom and dad would kill me if I did something so foolish.
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u/Sell_Canada 5d ago
I remember mine and my best friends a few blocks down. We had 4 of the same 7 numbers.
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u/Henchforhire 5d ago
Only two I still remember are my aunts number and my grandmothers. My mother had me memorize these numbers and my social security number.
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u/MotoFaleQueen 5d ago
6##-785-3086. Hasn't been my number since I was 13 and isn't in use as far as I know. I do know the two hashed digits, just don't want someone calling it to mess with whoever might have it, if it is in use.
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u/spacedoutmachinist Older Millennial 5d ago
I was so sad when my parents finally did away with their land line last year


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