A Monday Puzzler: "Beloved Aunt"

[Zulu Romeo]

For me, it was Zion's amusement at Jadzia's comment about putting the numbers into her remote control that made me think of a telephone's keypad.

Actually I was more amused that Jadzia mentioned that her "beloved aunt" was watching Deal Or No Deal. Then again, I get amused easily.

Nice puzzle, Zion - it's certainly generated the most interest of any of the puzzles we've had, even if that was mostly people cursing your name

To be fair, I did keep it open for about 5 days or so, and at the start of the working week when many people here are at a computer terminal with Net access, thus allowing more people to take part, and because they'd be working they would be otherwise actively using their minds anyway. But thanks.

 

[trampledamage]

For me, it was Zion's amusement at Jadzia's comment about putting the numbers into her remote control that made me think of a telephone's keypad.

Actually I was more amused that Jadzia mentioned that her "beloved aunt" was watching Deal Or No Deal. Then again, I get amused easily.

I think it was only yesterday that I actually figured out the "aunt" joke!

 

[Wrongway Janeway]

When I first saw it, I was pretty positive that the zeros were spaces between words. But I just couldn't figure out what letters corresponded to the numbers...but that was because there were three choices of letters for every number! Using the phone pad did not occur to me at all!

Oh, well. I got it eventually.

 

[RoJoHen]

When I first saw it, I was pretty positive that the zeros were spaces between words. But I just couldn't figure out what letters corresponded to the numbers...but that was because there were three choices of letters for every number! Using the phone pad did not occur to me at all!

I figured that's what the zeroes meant as well, but I couldn't figure the rest out. Probably because my phone has a QWERTY keyboard.

I haven't texted "the old fashioned way" in many years.

 

[Venardhi]

That was actually pretty much the first thing I tried, but my phone doesn't have the smart-text or whatever it is that chooses the appropriate letter and so I just ended up with a jumble and gave up.

 

[Tomato]

Darn it I was kind of close. I got a BB so it didn't show up ha ha ha!

Guess that would explain it

 

[Da'an]

I'm looking forward to the next puzzle. My brain is twitching with anticipation.

 

[David cgc]

Incidentally, there's a predictive texting simulator on-line here, for when you can't or won't use a real cell phone, but still want to use the telephone cypher. That's how I decoded it.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Thanks for the (mostly) constructive feedback, everyone. I promise the next one will be a bit more interesting. Perhaps easier.

It has a backstory, anyway.

 

[RJDiogenes]

"Texting?" "Correct gadget installed and enabled?" "Modern cell phones?" The only phone I have is the one I bought in 1989.

Once I realized what the code was, I just listed the groups of letters vertically in Notepad and most of the words just kind of jumped out at me.