Why Are People from Maine So Attached to the 207 Area Code?

I'm so old...

There's certainly a million ways to finish that sentence, but in this case... I'm so old that when I was a kid, you didn't even need to dial all seven digits of a phone number. You just had to dial the last five digits and that was it. And for that matter, I'm so old that the next town over from me was long distance. How messed up is that?

If there's one thing that Mainers really get right though, it's our intense commitment to all things nostalgic. We love to get waaaaay behind something that we should probably just get with the times on, and refuse to acknowledge change. It happens all the time. On the the other hand, dedication to how things have always been can be a very good quality to have. To those points...

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Maine is eventually facing a second area code.

We've been told for a few years now that we're facing a shortage of phone numbers in Maine, and that eventually we're going to have have an additional area code according to WGME. In no way does it mean that 207 would go away, we'd just have an another area code and start the number process all over again.

Right now, Maine is one of only 11 states left in the country that has a single area code. We've faced a couple of extensions already, and it looks now like we'll make it until 2032 before we have to worry about it again. But in all of North America, we're going to run out of options across the board in 2050.

Do we really care that much?

I suppose from a convenience point of view, having one area code is boss. But it's not like anybody remembers phone numbers anymore. You program it into your phone and forget about it. So what difference does it really make what the area code is? We're so attached to anything we consider "tradition", we don't even take the time to look at the real life impact this will cause. We can't wait forever.

For the time being, we're solid. We've got another 9 years before we'll be back to this place. Will it get extended again? Who knows? But at the end of the day, there's an awful lot of hub-bub over something that you'll just forget about a year later. Wait til 2050 when they add an extra two digits to everything because we ran out of all the  numbers, everywhere. That will likely be the end of days, hahaha.

Four digit phone numbers were a thing in Maine once. What else is on this list?