When we started our business we called the phone company to ask for a business line and we asked if they had any easy to remember numbers. They gave us 288-0880 and I always felt like it was lucky. I liked the way the numbers lined up on a push button phone. And I liked the way 4 and “D,” the fourth letter of the alphabet, seemed numerically connected to 288.
When a new Pizza Hut opened nearby they printed our number on refrigerator magnets. We got free shitty pizza for a bit. And we would get calls for JAy-Ve Tackle all the time just because the people who shop there can’t distinguish between 6s and 8s. Most of the calls we get these days are cold calls from India.
When we were growing up, about ten blocks east of where the 4D Advertising office was we had a 288 number as well. That was when people referred to those exchanges with words or two letter abbreviations. 288 was Butler 8 and the Butler was abbreviated as BU. People could tell what part of the city you were from by your exchange. I think our number back then was BU 8-3041.
4D has closed shop so I called the phone company today to pull the plug on that number. They said it would be disconnected at midnight tonight. I just called it thinking I wouLd leave one last message on our answering machine but it was already dead.
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AM6-4684. Topeka Kansas.