British Columbia 90210
An addendum to my ZIP-code-demanding gas pump story: When I'd finished paying for my gas at the counter and was walking back out to my car, a man stood in front of a car just behind mine, also with BC plates, and he was fumbling with the keypad on the gas pump.
"ZIP code issues, too?" I asked.
"Yeah," he answered. "I've never been asked this by a gas pump before. I hate this ZIP code business."
"You can get around it by paying inside the shop, if you can't get it to work," I offered.
"No worries," he said. "I just tried a Southern California ZIP code I know, and it seems to be taking it."
It seemed a little random at the time, but all it did was frustrate me seeing as how the [recently valid] Dallas ZIP code I had used was rejected. But knowing no one in Southern CA, I didn't even worry about what specific ZIP code he might have used, until a comment on the story this morning from Spike grabbed my attention:
Realization suddenly set in, and I nearly fell out of my seat. Still giggling about it a couple of hours later, I had to tell the story to a cube neighbor from Toronto. "So this stupid gas pump in southern Washington was asking me for my ZIP code, and. . . ."
"Did you try 90210?" he interrupted. "That's the one I always use. It's the only ZIP code I know, but it seems to work most of the time. . . ."
"Yeah, me too!" chimed in another nearby coworker, still before I could force any intelligible response through my gaping mouth.
Is this a universal solution to the problem? Do all Canadians do this? Do you guys know that everybody does this, or was it a solution which you all arrived at independently? If 30 million Canadians all simultaneously type "90210" in the middle of a forest, does it make a sound?
I can't help but imagine a stuffy team of researchers in the office of some research firm somewhere:
"Sir, our new fuel consumer research statistics indicate that the Beverly Hills area has a remarkable saturation of residents using Canadian credit cards."
"Recent immigrants perhaps?"
"That's all I can figure. Or theft. But none have been rejected as lost or stolen. Why Southern California, though? And not Seattle, Detroit, Buffalo, and so on? And their travel patterns don't reflect the residence patterns. They're still only driving around near the 49th parallel, even if they do live in Southern Cal."
"Well, any clues in the census data? What do the numbers show?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Maybe it's too recent. It's as if last week these people suddenly . . . um . . . all packed up and just . . . well . . . moved to Beverly."
An irritating set of carefully-planned marketing research data-gathering techniques totally sabotaged by the intersection of a bunch of enterprising Canadians and a bad early-90s melodramatic teen prime-time drama. Life is rich.
"ZIP code issues, too?" I asked.
"Yeah," he answered. "I've never been asked this by a gas pump before. I hate this ZIP code business."
"You can get around it by paying inside the shop, if you can't get it to work," I offered.
"No worries," he said. "I just tried a Southern California ZIP code I know, and it seems to be taking it."
It seemed a little random at the time, but all it did was frustrate me seeing as how the [recently valid] Dallas ZIP code I had used was rejected. But knowing no one in Southern CA, I didn't even worry about what specific ZIP code he might have used, until a comment on the story this morning from Spike grabbed my attention:
I was in Seattle and a lot of the stores ask your zip code when you're at the cash. I just say 90210, cuz that's the only one I know. They usually give you a strange look...
Realization suddenly set in, and I nearly fell out of my seat. Still giggling about it a couple of hours later, I had to tell the story to a cube neighbor from Toronto. "So this stupid gas pump in southern Washington was asking me for my ZIP code, and. . . ."
"Did you try 90210?" he interrupted. "That's the one I always use. It's the only ZIP code I know, but it seems to work most of the time. . . ."
"Yeah, me too!" chimed in another nearby coworker, still before I could force any intelligible response through my gaping mouth.
Is this a universal solution to the problem? Do all Canadians do this? Do you guys know that everybody does this, or was it a solution which you all arrived at independently? If 30 million Canadians all simultaneously type "90210" in the middle of a forest, does it make a sound?
I can't help but imagine a stuffy team of researchers in the office of some research firm somewhere:
"Sir, our new fuel consumer research statistics indicate that the Beverly Hills area has a remarkable saturation of residents using Canadian credit cards."
"Recent immigrants perhaps?"
"That's all I can figure. Or theft. But none have been rejected as lost or stolen. Why Southern California, though? And not Seattle, Detroit, Buffalo, and so on? And their travel patterns don't reflect the residence patterns. They're still only driving around near the 49th parallel, even if they do live in Southern Cal."
"Well, any clues in the census data? What do the numbers show?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Maybe it's too recent. It's as if last week these people suddenly . . . um . . . all packed up and just . . . well . . . moved to Beverly."
An irritating set of carefully-planned marketing research data-gathering techniques totally sabotaged by the intersection of a bunch of enterprising Canadians and a bad early-90s melodramatic teen prime-time drama. Life is rich.