Protip: I got it!
Submitted by CalamityJon on June 1, 2009 - 16:39
I just got back from the supermarket, where Tommy Tutone saved me six bits off the cost of a diet soda. The supermarket in question is one of those places where they run a "Preferred Member Club" scheme - or some damn thing - for card-carrying shoppers, and for which you can claim club benefits if you've got a phone number that's been registered with the food-pimping finks.
As an aside, I've got a general hate-on for those things, largely because I can remember when all it took to buy a can of peas was a handful of coins, rather than a handful of coins and a personal secret. For literally thousands of years, the barter system operated unabated and uncomplicated in its means of exchanging goods and services and tender for one another, but now it's like we're living in this increasingly absurd fairy tale world where we can't cross bridges until we answer riddles. "Sure, an' I'll sell you these all-beef hot dogs for five dollars, or it'll be two packs for six if ye can answer me riddle - me first is in river, but not in canoe, when I hold your lover's face, she cannae see mine, so what's me name? Ooh, turr turr tu turr ..."
Worse yet is the inappropriateness of even asking for this info, try paring it down to a person-to-person communication without the mitigation of an impersonal form. Cashier all ringing you up, "Okay, that's two boxes of cereal, a can of tuna, loaf of bread ... that'll be $10.15, oh, and by the way, where do you live and how much do you make in a year?" Fuckin' madness, that.
So anyway, I don't fill those things out, but I'm more than happy to get their "member prices" (i.e. not marked up beyond all reason), because all of these hokum savings clubs let you use phone numbers as your ID, and every one of these I've ever encountered acknowledges "Area Code + 867-5309." There is apparently a nationwide network of wiseasses who've been registering 867-5309 as the phone number for just about any service which requires a phone number (it's not a functional exchange in most cities, as I understand it) ... myself included.
There even used to be a website which documented all the places where 867-5309 worked - I miss it, because it might've given me ideas as to where to use it, and also because I love it when the wiseass who registered the number gets extra clever and, upon checking out, the cashier thanks "Mister Tutone" or "Mister Jenny", after reading the surname on the display.
So anyway, 867-5309, more than just a catchy song but also a handy protip to get around the frustrating business of signing away your personal info just to save fifteen cents on a can of peas. Use it and enjoy!
