Talking Telephone Numbers

Having endured the joy of having a 'pay as you go' mobile phone for pretty much the entire time i've been in the US so far (i got it two weeks after arrival), last weekend,, i FINALLY managed to get round to swapping it over to a contract phone. This was no mean feat in itself, i should add - as i made the mistake of choosing the Saturday after Thanksgiving to visit the mall to do this (one word: busy!). Anyway, after much waiting around, pleading, sobbing and threatening (you get the general picture), i was able to sort this all out. At first i thought it would be a case of stumbling at the first hurdle again - i had my social security number, but then the form asked for a driver's licence number. Fortunately, this turned out not to be essential. On the downside of things, my lack of credit history in the US (the new thorn in my side) meant that i had to pay a $500 deposit that will be returned to me. Provided I pay all my bills on time. Now this is a lot of money to part with, but i was tired of throwing it down the drain away with the pre-paid phone (it was such that, if anyone called me, I had to pay!).

Of course, this means the obligatory number switch as well - but thankfully my phone handset had all my numbers in its memory so didn't need lots of faffing around. The numbers over here are something that i'm slowly getting used to. Apparently, there used to be a logic to it - but that went out the window sometime ago. As with the UK, there is an 'area code' - in this case, three digits (843 for Charleston and probably the surrounding areas) followed by seven digits - the phone number itself. The strange thing is what numbers need to be dialled in order to get through. In the UK, if you're in the same area as the number you're dialling, you don't need to dial the code - but then if you do, it doesn't matter as the call still connects. Over here, you dial the code and you don't need to, then the phone goes crazy in your ear. On the flip side, if you want to dial a state number, then it's fine, but anywhere else and you have to put '1' before it (i think this is the 'long distance' number or something. Either way, it's enough to give you a headache - especially when the bloody fax machine doesn't work properly with it!