A few days ago, my wife Eileen had to read off a flight confirmation number over the phone to an airline representative and, as most pleasant citizens do, she tried to make it easier for the person on the other end of the line by phonetically helping out with the letters.

"That's D as in dog, B as in boy" and so on, she said.

The conversation concluded happily, and both parties were satisfied. But not me.

I'm tired of "B as in 'boy'" and "D as in 'dog'" and all the other letters that have stereotyped phonetic helpers. Here are some scenarios that please me:

1. Henceforth, when I have to divulge a credit card number over the phone, I'm going to make it more entertaining.

Me: "So that's two-four-seven, B as in 'batrachivorous,' six-four, D as in 'dactyliomancy,' niner-two."

Phone assister: "Thank you, Mr. Koster."

2. While we use words as phonetic keys for letters, we don't do the same thing for numbers. Maybe they're easier to understand; maybe not.

Phone assister: "Could you give me that confirmation, Mr. Koster?"

Me: "You bet. That's A as in apple, D as in dog, two — by which I mean the figure you get when you subtract six from eight — then S as in six — by which I mean three-plus-three, but remember we're talking about a letter here in the sequence and not any of the numbers I used to illustrate the example. And then we finish with fifty-four, which you can visualize as the divisor wherein the quotient is 8,954 and the dividend would be, ah, one-hundred and sixty-five-point-eight-one-four."

Phone assister: "Got it, sir! You're good to go!"

3. And though I've never found myself in the position where someone recites a string of letters and numbers to me over the phone — unless it's a debt collector letting me know how much I owe — I'm going to endeavor to make it happen more often because it could be interesting.

Serial number reciter: "That's B as in boy ..."

Me: "Which boy are we talking about?"

Serial number reciter: "What? No, I meant just the letter B and used 'boy' so you wouldn't hear me incorrectly and think I said a letter that sounds phonetically similar. Like D or G."

Me: "Yeah, I get that. But you referred to a boy. For me to process your application correctly, I'll have to know precisely which boy. Was it Kurt? And is that Kurt with a K as in kite or C as in cat?"

Serial number reciter: "Oh, got it. It's Kurt with a K."

Me: "That's a big 10-4."