If you're from San Francisco, Daly City, Brisbane or Marin County, the 415 area code is part of your very identity.
It's not just the first three numbers your relatives from out of town have to dial to reach you, it's also an integral part of your awesome back tattoo. As legendary San Francisco rapper Andre Nickatina once said, "I represent my mind in the 415 dime."
415's local hegemony may soon be broken now that the area code is running out of three-digit prefixes. As a result, regulators are looking to add 628 into the mix.
We blame everyone working at tech startups who have multiple phones for gobbling up so many of our precious, precious numbers.
The California Public Utilities Commission Spokesperson Christopher Chow told Bay City News that there are two options for how to proceed. The 628 area code could either be the place where all the new numbers are housed or--horror of horrors--the 415 could be violently ripped in twain with some 415 numbers being suddenly switched over to 628.
There are two schools of thought on this. You could either be horrified at even the thought of being tossed out of the 415 and wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine can't get a date because she had to switch area codes and suddenly all the guys she asks out thins she lives in New Jersey. Or you could be a hipster early-adopter of the 628 and claim that you had the new area code before it was cool.
The thing is, the latter option is wrong.
The CPUC is soliciting input from the public on its website, so if you feel strongly about the issue, you can make your feelings known. If you'd rather share your opinion in person, there are public meetings scheduled in San Francisco and Marin in January.
Check out this slideshow of how some locals have reacted to the news on Twitter: