Time's Up for the "Popcorn" Lady

At the sound of the tone, time is...running out, apparently, for the "popcorn lady"—that distinctive voice on the phone who's been telling us the exact time for decades now.

There's a great story in the Los Angeles Times about the impending end of AT&T's "time of day" service—which, frankly, I thought was already dead and gone. According to the story, only California and Nevada still carry the service, and Californians will be bidding good-bye to the time lady on September 19.

What lead to the demise of the popcorn lady? (For those of you with no idea what I'm talking about, just dial 916-767-2676—or POP-CORN—and you'll hear her say, "at the tone, Pacific Daylight Time will be..." followed by a beep when the exact moment hits.) According to an AT&T rep quoted in the story, the crush of devices such as computers and cell phones—all armed with digital clocks—has rendered the good lady obsolete. Also, by ending the service in California, AT&T can free up about 300,000 phone numbers that used the 853 and 767 prefixes, the LAT reports.

For those of you who remember the chirpy, tireless voice of the popcorn lady, make sure to check out the full LA Times story—writer David Lazurus lays out a entertaining history of the famous voices (well, famous in telecommunications circles, anyway) that have been telling us the time since the 1920s. Who's the voice of time today, you ask? That would be retired Atlanta resident Joanne Daniels, 65, who joked to Lazurus that her epitaph will probably be, "She knew the time." Indeed she did.

Related:
Time of day calling it quits at AT&T [LA Times]