I will have to admit I haven’t been here for a while. That’s all right; you haven’t been here for a while either. But I was moved to come here today to solve a problem. Like most things that bother me, it’s not a problem for most people.

This problem deals with the telephone.

First, a little background. Alexander Graham Bell got the first U.S. patent for a telephone in 1876. People give him a lot of credit for making the first phone. That was nice and everything, but it wasn’t as important as making the second phone.

It’s widely reported that the first phone call was to Bell’s assistant Mr. Watson in the next room. That’s not accurate. The first call was from someone telling Bell that the warranty on his buggy had expired.

I am not old enough to remember those phones, but I do remember that the phones in my little hometown in Minnesota did not have dials. You picked up the phone and the operator asked who you wanted to call. The number at our house was 199-J. The number at my dad’s office was 241. I remember those numbers, even though I was too young to use the phone. I am old enough to use the phone now, but I cannot tell you the phone number of a single person I know.

Sixty-five year old obsolete phone number, no problem. Number I call twice a week, not a clue.

We eventually got phones with dials, sometime after most of the rest of the nation already had them. For those of you unfamiliar, it had numbers on the surface and a plastic or metal round dial above it, with a hole over each number. Those antiques are now called rotary phones. We called them phones. To make a call, you put your index finger (usually) in the hole above the first digit of the number you wanted to call, and spun it around clockwise until it stopped, then you did the same for every other digit until you had finished all the numbers for whoever you were calling. That is why, to this day, people talk about dialing the phone. No one dials a phone any more, and hasn’t since some time in the 70’s, but no one has come up with a good term to explain how to call someone. Push button the phone? No. Tap the phone? That’s something else altogether. People still dial the phone, even though they don’t.

(We also still roll down the windows in a car. Explain that to your granddaughter some time.)

So anyway, in the 70’s, dials were replaced by push buttons. These were called touch tone phones. It’s pretty much like what you see on a phone now, especially if you have seen one on the desk at an office. They haven’t changed all that much. Cell phones have that same rectangular layout of numbers, though they are rarely used as phones.

The numbers are arranged 1, 2 and 3 on the top row, 4, 5, and 6 in the middle, then 7, 8, 9 and finally *, 0 and # on the bottom. Letters of the alphabet are paired with the numbers so  businesses can advertise that you should call 1-800-PLUMBER or 1-213-CARPETS and be annoyed as you try to spell-by-number.

I know what you’re thinking. What the hell is my point? What’s this problem I’m bitching about.

OK. Comes now the calculator. Actually, comes first the calculator. Adding machines came before calculators, and calculators came before touch tone phones. And because calculators are used by accountants, they saw some logic in putting the numbers sideways. 7, 8 and 9 on the top, 4, 5, and 6 still in the middle, and 1, 2, 3 on the bottom, with 0 below that. After all, doesn’t everyone look at a page of numbers and start with 7? Apparently, to get out of accountant school you have to learn to count 7 8, 9, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 0. That explains a lot about government budget deficits. The number arrangement seemed logical to accountants. Need I say more?  

Now, somebody in the comments is bound to say that the reason the phone keypad is not laid out the same as the calculator is because accountants are so fast with a calculator, and that the phone couldn’t register the numbers that fast. The buttons on the phone put out a tone that sends a signal that connects the number. If you’re too fast, the tones don’t make the connection. And that’s a popular theory. It might even be true, if it were not the first time in recorded history that anybody cared what an accountant said.

You can just imagine the meeting:

“We have to reverse the keypad, because the accountants can’t get their calls to connect.”

“Who?”

Regardless, the phone keypad remains 1, 2, 3… and the calculator is 7, 8, 9…

This also explains why accountants never return your calls. They constantly dial wrong numbers. If your phone rings and the caller claims to be an accountant, hang up. It’s a scam.

For the rest of us who call people sometimes, and do some subtraction now and then, we have to double check what keypad we’re using. It’s a particular problem as you switch between the phone and the calculator on your mobile device (a euphemism for phone). Because there is no little notch on the 5, even accountants are not fast with those.  They should be the same. And they should be in the order they are in on a phone. That’s why it’s called numerical order. If we rise up and demand it, politely of course, maybe we can get that done.

And when that day comes, they can take the numbers off above the letters on the keyboard. Come on, that’s just stupid.