Perhaps they mean well, but I would like to wring the necks of the people in companies and organizations that come up with phone numbers comprising words, such as "Dial 1-800-BALONEY" or "Dial BIG-BAR-GAIN."  There's even a mattress company that says, "Dial 1-800-MATRESS" (or is it 1-800-MATTRES?), misspelling mattress because the correct spelling has too many letters for a seven-digit phone number – makes it look as if they don't know how to spell the name of their product.

Recently, in a search for information about Medicare (on their website, which is, by the way, a user-unfriendly mess), I noticed that one way to contact them is to call 1-800-MEDICARE.  But "Medicare" has eight letters, so how would this work?  I asked my wife.  "Oh," she said, "It ignores the last letter."  "So, if I dial 'MEDICAR,' I'll get through?"  "I think so," she said.  "That's ridiculous," I said, "I'm going to write my Congressman and complain."  "Like he'll care," she said.  "Of course he will," I said, "Haven't you noticed that Congress loves to deal with trivialities so that they can ignore the important stuff?"  But I'm digressing – back to phone numbers that aren't numbers.

Now, I understand that this ploy is intended to help us remember the number.  However, it makes it harder to dial the number because, doofus, each number (except "1") corresponds to three letters on the phone.  I never get it right the first time and wind up being connected to something like the Center for Wayward Moose in Bangor, Maine.  To prevent such blunders, I spend five minutes staring at the phone and translating the letters into numbers before I dial.  Some convenience!