During breakfast this morning, my 13-year-old son asked me how those phone numbers work–the ones where you spell a word to dial, like 1-800-mattress (with one “s”), or 1-866-plumber. My 11-year-old daughter also was curious.

This stunned me, because my son text messages with his friends all of the time–when he isn’t playing an online game like World of Warcraft, or playing some sport like baseball, basketball or football. He is tech-saavy, so why is this simple dialing scheme a problem?

Turns out that modern-day technology has to take some of the blame. Kevin tried dialing one of the numbers like he would text message. For example, to get the letter “s”, he tried pushing the 7 on the phone four times (to cycle along “p,” “q” and “r,” to get to “s.” But he kept getting recorded messages that “the number you are dialing is not in service at this time.”

He is an honor-roll student–honest! Anyone else have an example of a youngster not being as proficient with technology as we might assume?

Kevin hopes so.