Phone Services Allow You to Dial-A-Life

Need a new mattress, but don’t feel like getting out of bed? Slumber comfort is just a phone call away--as are dream dates, decorators, teachers and T-shirts, all via the city’s assorted Dial-A lines.

Dial-A-Floor. Dial-A-Chef. Dial-A-Hearing Test. In New York, where time is always tight, you can get everything from soup to nuts--and a redecorated kitchen to eat them in--with nothing more than a touch-tone phone.

“You can call us from your office, from your home, from your car--doesn’t matter. And within two hours, we can deliver you a mattress,” said Joe Vicens, vice president of sales and marketing at Dial-A-Mattress.

“We get close to 1,000 calls a day,” he said. “On a top day, we get 1,500 calls.”

It wasn’t always so. For seven years, Vicens answered the phones alone. But times have changed; there are more two-job families, less time to shop. And it’s so easy to punch in 1-800-MATTRES (nobody said spelling was a requirement for sales).

Dial-A-Mattress was born 12 years ago when a small furniture company owner, Napoleon Barrigan, spotted a “dial-a-steak promotion in one of the papers,” Vicens recalled. “This gave him the idea for Dial-A-Mattress. Surprisingly, a lot of people started calling.”

The steak idea is still hot. Dial-A-Chef will dispatch a genuine, trained cook to your residence to prepare the repast of your choice.

“We are not a catering service. If you’re planning a dinner party, you call us up. We send over a chef who prepares an entire meal right in your home,” said manager Charles Dean, whose company opened last year.

He has about two dozen chefs, who handle everything from vegetarian delights to fine French cuisine. The chefs get $20 to $50 an hour; they work a minimum of four hours, and raw materials cost extra, Dean said.

Since man does not live by bed alone--or by pheasant under glass--there are Dial-A-Prayer and Dial-An-Atheist.

“I give thanks, O God, that because I believe in thee, I can be positive about life. . . . Remove the fears from my heart, I pray, for fears draw negative feelings. Prune my thoughts of defeat,” intoned a recent Dial-A-Prayer.

Thus inspired, it’s on to the secular, like Dial-A-Hearing Test. There was no answer there, leading a caller to believe it apparently works this way: If you can hear the phone ringing, your ears are OK.

Obviously in demand: secretaries. There are three Dial-A-Secretary numbers for people seeking temporary office assistance, a figure outdone only by Penthouse magazine’s risque Dial-A-Forum Letter and its five exchanges.

Overall, Manhattan offers 40 Dial-A services--uh, make that 39. Out of business: Dial-A-Dentist. “I’m sure you’ve got the wrong number. This is a shoe store,” advised the worker answering the phone at the line once used for dental aid.

The services are not only for adults. Students stumped by homework can Dial-A-Teacher from Monday through Thursday, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Instructors take phone calls and provide instant assistance in both English and Spanish.

People looking to get dressed but not dressed up can ring Dial-A-T-Shirt, where custom print jobs are a specialty. These guys will put anything you want on a hat, T-shirt or sweat shirt, said manager Dean Artenberg.

Unfortunately, people still must come down to the store to pick up their orders, although Artenberg said he can understand why they would rather do their business by phone only.

“It’s getting to where you go out on the street around here, you might not ever be coming back,” he observed.