When I lived in the cosmopolitan city of Peterborough, Ontario back in the mid- to late 1980s, there came a time when they ran out of good old solid telephone numbers in the 743 and 748 telephone exchanges, and anyone who signed up for new telephone service received a number in the dreaded 741 exchange (a plot that later played out on Seinfeld when Elaine was assigned a 646 exchange number instead of a 212).

This situation is playing itself out again, this time here in grand old Charlottetown: new provincial public servants are marked by their presence in the dreaded 569 exchange.

They might as well make them wear special boots!