How many phone numbers do you have memorized?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Something a bit random and non-serious this time around..

Back in the age of the dinosaurs we had rotary dial phones and paper books that had a list of numbers for individuals and businesses. There were even lines on one page where you could write down numbers that you frequently called. Of course, most of those frequent numbers were memorized because, well, they were frequently used.

Now, in the modern age of digital brains, most of the memory space for those numbers have been reallocated for other tasks, like random information for trivia night.

Leading to the purpose of this post. How many phone numbers do you have in active memory. I’ll start.

Mine. Of course. Businesses frequently ask for it.

My wife and one daughter on my phone plan.

My brother’s business landline that he’s had for decades before cell phones.

My BFF from 80’s high school because he still has it active.

Dead landlines..

My residence where I was in elementary school.

My residence where I lived in high school..

There are a couple of friend’s numbers I would recognize if they came in without caller ID.

2

Not nearly as many as I used to, thanks to having a smartphone.

I still can recite, from memory:

  • Our landline number (yes, we still have one, for now)
  • My wife’s and my cell numbers
  • My parents’ landline number (as my mom still has the same number, though a different area code now, that they got when we moved to Wisconsin in 1975)
  • The phone number for the True Value hardware store which my parents owned from 1975-1979
  • The phone number for the house we lived in from 1968 until 1975
  • The phone number for my aunt and uncle, who lived three blocks away from us in 1968 through 1975

Plus a few sticky phone numbers from advertising jingles.

3

I can still remember Jenny’s number from the early eighties. But I can’t recall the area code.

4

555

5

My cell phone.
My wife’s cell phone.
My home phone number growing up.
The phone number of a place I worked at in college.

I know a few more numbers based on translating them to words but I don’t know the actual numbers without looking at a phone keypad.

7

Assuming you mean private numbers that still work and not old ones burned into my head as a kid:

mine, barely - need it for stuff
roomie’s - ditto
sister’s - for emergencies
mom’s old friend - it just hasn’t changed
the doctor’s office - it’s one off from sis’s

And even some of those were pushing it, as I had to check to make sure I had them right.

8

The only current phone number I know off the top of my head is my own. I remember my home phone growing up and that of a childhood friend.

9

3, in total.

My own. My ex-wife. My small-town home phone number from when I was a young child.

So small-town, and so long ago, the number was just four digits, 3915.

10

Do not remember numbers at all.

I have to ask my own phone number.

It’s a handicap a pen and paper fixes very easily.

I think I remember the time/temp number from way back when.

…I just called it. It’s still works.

11

Four-my own, son, daughter and the public library of course.

12

None, really. I do remember mine if I stop and think, but if I haven’t said it out loud for a couple of months it’s a struggle to recall it. And I’ve had this number for nearly 15 years.

13

Current numbers:
My number
My wife’s number
One sibling

Numbers I still remember, but the numbers no longer work or the person isn’t there
Family residence
Two friends from high school (who don’t live there anymore)
My grandmother

14

Active numbers:

  1. Our landline number
  2. My mobile number (but not my wife’s; I dial that number from contacts)
  3. My brother’s landline number (because that has been the number of our childhood home we moved in in 1970)
    4, My employer’s front desk
  4. My work phone extension
  5. Work phone extension of shopfloor boss
  6. Landline phone of aunt
  7. and 9. Emergency numbers 110 for police and 112 for other emergency

Defunct numbers

  1. My father’s extension at work in the 1970s
  2. The extension of my student job in the 1980s
  3. My landline phone in Hanover, 1983-1993
  4. My landline phone, 1993-2010
  5. My wife’s and my landline , 2010-2022

My estimate of the numbers that I dialed from memory before the mobile phone contact list rotted my brain: in the 30s-50s depending on period.

15

I keep in my mind quite a few phone numbers… but I wonder if anybody here remembers them as I do.

I don’t remember phone numbers as a string of numbers in my head. I remember them as finger motions, as if my finger was pressing the buttons in an invisible keyboard.

Does anybody else do something like this to remember phone numbers?

16

My cell number.

My wife’s cell.

Our landline (now VOIP) number.

My childhood phone number.

A few old work numbers (mainly because I use them as PINs for various things).

And of course 588-2300.

17

Hundreds, but they are all too old to be useful. I never forgot a phone number until my mid thirties. Literally would dial it once and tuck it away without trying. Now, (late 50’s) the speed dial handles all that, and I am useless without the contact list in my phone.

18

I’ve mentioned this a few times.

My current number, but I need to think about it.

My phone number from age 8 to adult.

Two phone numbers of friends when I was a teenager.

My phone number when I was 25-45 ish.

And 857-5309.

19

I use my childhood phone number as my mobile phone ‘unlock’ number.

20

I have always had a good facility for memorizing numbers. Not effortless, but even one time use numbers stuck around for months before clearing out. Now … not so much. One and done is one and done; they’re gone by the time the call is over.

So my mental phone number horde is about like the rest of us …

Active:
My mobile number that I’ve now had for 20+ years. I had memorized my ex-wife’s (presumably still active) mobile number from 2021 in the course of giving it to a lot of people, paperwork, & websites, but I’ve since lost the last 4 digits. I don’t know any of the numbers of any of my current friends or my serious GF.

Dead or still active but now irrelevant to me:
My parent’s two numbers that went with my childhood through high school residences. My late wife’s mobile number picked to be similar to mine; we got a matched sorta-pair at the same time when we switched carriers. The 800 number for my former employer’s crew management department. Although they deliberately picked it to spell something memorable and I remember it by the words, not the digits. It wasn’t 800-EAT-SHIT, but it sure could’ve been for all the turmoil and trouble that came via that number over the years. :zany_face:


And of course the fake numbers from a couple of popular songs.

Ahem. It’s 867-5309. :grin:


Like I suspect most people, I can recognize a lot more numbers than I can recall. e.g. If you showed me a list of three numbers where one is my ex-wife’s and the other two are similar plausible fakes, I’d almost certainly be able to pick out the real one. Bury it in 10 or 15 similar ones? Much harder.

21

I know mine, Mrs Mouse’s and Mini Mouse’s.

Most of the numbers I remember, are landlines that haven’t been in service for many years. My parents, siblings, my office number at several former employers. I also remember the main number at my current and former employer whose numbers are deliberately easy to remember. I put them down when people insist on getting a “work phone” from me. They both work but are pointless unless you know someone’s extension.

Can’t think of any others.