There are things in life that happen to people around you and you think "That would never happen to me!"

I try to be a good person and do the right thing. I drop change into the guitar cases of street performers, I say please and thank you, I do unto others, pray for the troops and shop at Habitat For Humanity Restore (the proceeds to toward Habitat for Humanity).

To spite all my good deeds it still happened.....I LOST ALL MY CELL PHONE CONTACTS!!!!

The humiliation of looking in your address book and seeing NOTHING is almost unbearable. I feel as if I have no friends, no family, nobody to call...ever.

This experience has helped me to realize that we no longer live in the days where you memorized your friends phone numbers. I realize that I have been calling people for many years and I have no idea what area code their phone is in.

I have a friend in Victorville which is clearly a 760 area code and just now I am finding out that her cell number has a 323 area code which is L.A. County. What kind of world do we live in where a 760'er or a 909'er can have a 323 or 714 number? I feel partly to blame. I did drop the 909 jokes when ever I could once I moved to the O.C. I wore my 714 number like a badge of honor. My purple heart earned by making it out of the I.E. with all my teeth and only 1 child.

I had to wonder, had my mockery cause people of California to assume false area codes in an attempt to convey a different image of themselves? Is this why the 909 came out with a 951 area code? This is all coming together now! I am ashamed of myself!

I beg of you my friends, stop the 909 jokes, I.E. jokes and other logistically motivated mockery before we run out of area code combinations in this great land.

And please, give me your phone numbers to replenish my contact list. I promise I will not mock your area code or question your intentions when your area code does not match your primary residence area code.