1-800-EAT-SHIT

On Quiznos Sub napkins, a line reads, "Customer Comments: Call 1-866-4-TOASTED." Presumably, some snotty hotshot in marketing -- or perhaps a mentally retarded monkey -- thought arcana rather than simplicity would "extend the brand." Why anyone would call Quiznos is beyond me, but that's not the subject of this post. Instead, I turn your attention to the idiotic practice of using words you have to translate on your phone keypad into numbers you can dial. What's worse is the use of more than 7 characters, requiring slower humans (myself included) to count the number of digits and letters, decode them, and then avoid looking like an ass if we press more than 7 phone numbers. Like the "D" (or 2) in toasted, which does nothing. I might just decode 4-TOASTED so I can call Quiznos and refer them to this blog post.

You see a lot of this dumbass cuteness on billboards, in fast food joints, in cinema commercials, usually anywhere and in any context where a person is unlikely to pick up the phone and dial. I guess marketing dorks and their strategically inept counterparts in customer service think it's a way to make their companies look accessible. That, or people who could probably be cut from the payroll spend too much time in front of Roget's.