The Wayback Machine

Did anyone else receive a fossil on their doorstep this week? I refer, of course, to the phone book. I must be special because I received not one, but three, copies of this testament to the 20th Century. I've ranted about the uselessness that is the phone book before, and I'm about to do it again. I recognize that I could be construed as (no! don't say it!) elitist because my dislike for the phone book conveniently forgets that not everyone has a computer or even access to one, nor do people always have the money to blithely dial 411 every time they need some brake fluid. I do get that and will therefore soften my 2009 demand for "Telephone Book Ban Now!" into "Please Leave Only One Copy of This Monstrosity K?Thanksbye!" I mean, it does have some use. Just this morning I opened that drawer I never open and pulled out last year's phone book for recycling, and popped this year's new one in. And there it will no doubt stay until you lovely readers get to hear my 2011 rant about phone books again. In the meantime, we can all rejoice at the impending death of all those "jokes" about phone books, like Yo Mama is like the phone book: available to the public, free of charge. Or the Jerry Lewis-style classic: "Why are there so many Johnsons in the phone book? Because they all have phones!" Yuk Yuk Yuk.