This is perhaps one of the funniest April Fools jokes today, from NPR:
Late last year, the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, ruled that phone customers would soon be able to keep their telephone numbers with them when they changed carriers. That made it possible for a person to retain a familiar number even when switching, say from Sprint to MCI, and even from traditional phone service to cell phone service.
At the time, no one anticipated the cascading effect this would have. Now the concept has spilled over onto another branch of the federal government. NPR’s Andrea Seabrook reports on the latest expansion of portability.
If you were sitting far in the back of the packed conference room you may have missed the smile that broke across the faces of the 15 Post Service employees on the rostrum. But smiles they were indeed — as the afternoon’s surprise announcement was read at the end of the usual daily briefing to reporters by the Assistant Postmaster General Lester Crandall.
“I’m pleased to announce a new feature of our on-going “Go Postal” campaign,” said Crandall. “It’s yet another step to modernize our postal system and satisfy our customers.
“Every year millions of Americans are on the go: People who must relocate for work or other reasons. Those people may have been quite attached to their original homes or an adopted town or city of residence. For them this innovative measure will serve as an umbilical cord to the place they love best.
“So it is with great pride and pleasure I tell you that starting next month, the national Portable Zip Codes program will commence. With it, American citizens can keep their present zip codes wherever they chose to live, across the country or across town.”
So I just get to write off everything NPR said yesterday because how am I supposed to know what’s true? Maybe it’s not approp for some to play games? Maybe Wayne Dyer was a joke too. How do you know?
‘Cos Wayne Dyer is on ALL THE TIME. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
It’s a good point, though, about NPR. As much as I love their April Fools jokes, I wonder if it’s appropriate for a news program to do that. I guess that some people would say that “All Things Considered” is also entertainment, but that classification just opens up yet another can of worms.
Hmm.