Phone Books, Still?

I realized while searching in vain in my garage for my stupid missing ice scraper the other day, that I have about 30 different phone books laying around on the garage floor. This perplexes me. Why do we still get paper versions of the phone book? When was the last time you actually looked in the phone book? Actually, when was the last time your phone book served any purpose other than "doorstop" or "part of pile of random detritus piled in the garage"?

I don't understand this, and what's more, some guy came by to give me another phone book the other day, and he slipped in the driveway and fell in some dirty snow. As a former Qwest delivery boy myself when I was 18-20, I would never have been caught dead delivering phone books in the snow, and I was a moron back then, even more so than I am now. As proof of this, I offer up some moron-type things I did while delivering phone books.

1.) Went into a yard with a scary dog hiding behind a bush and threw the Yellow Pages at him in order to get away.

2.) Went delivering on a 95 degree day with no water, 12 cents in my pocket, and no credit cards. I had to periodically sneak into people's yards and drink from their sprinklers in order not to die. This led to an awkward exchange between me and a kid about my age who I startled when he popped out of a house I was drinking from.

Kid: Uh, hi. Who are you?

Me: Sorry. I'm delivering Phone Books and I, ummm, I got thirsty. So I was drinking from the sprinkler. Sorry.

Kid: Oh. Ok. (Stares at the ground for a long time)

Me: Well, I gotta go. Thanks for the water.

Kid: I don't even live here...

3.) Got really lost trying to find a neighborhood in Roseville and in the midst of an epic car tantrum, punched the windshield and spider-webbed it. Calmed down to process my actions, found the neighborhood, finished the delivery, and proceeded to blame the broken windshield on a rock falling off an overpass. (Side Note: My parents believed this, even though the break originated from the inside. Must have been a clever rock.)

4.) Told an old toothless homeless guy that loaded the phonebooks into my car from a big trailer that my favorite drink was Tanqueray even though I had no idea what it was at the time and was just trying to seem cool because I heard Snoop Dogg mention it. Thankfully he did not call my bluff. It's always embarrassing to have an old toothless, homeless guy throw the bullshit flag at you. Thankfully it's only happened twice to me.

5.) Got bored delivering one day and threw all my phonebooks in a dumpster and then claimed to have finished the route. Got paid anyway. Learned later that throwing phone books away is illegal. Also threw 2 phone books in a Port-A-Potty to see what would happen once.

6.) Delivered a phone book directly into the hands of a crazy person who to thanked me and then said

"You know, 75% of the 500,000 gooks in the world are chinks. Heh heh heh, that's a lot of chinks!"

It's been 15 years and I'm still trying to figure out what that meant.

7.) Almost got killed by a cadre of Mexican gang members because they thought I was trying to sneak in or something. I set the book on the porch and was leaving when I heard,

"Hey, what are you doing?"

Me: Oh, just delivering your phone book

Him: You like the music?

Me: No, phone book

Him (after long pause): What are you doing here?

Two other guys came out looking angry.

Them: What are you doing here?

Me: Phone books guys, phone books!

They didn't know what phone books were and I was about to get shanked. I finally walked between them all, picked up the phone book, pointed at it and said "Phone Book". It was like Gangsta Sesame Street.

They were all OK with that, but when I left I distinctly heard a "Que Esta Haciendo" coming from one of them. I'm not getting killed over phone books.

So yeah, I was a dumb kid delivering phone books, but even I knew not to deliver in the winter, or even at all anymore. It's just unnecessary clutter. Thanks anyway, but from now on please deliver my phone books to homeless shelters or malnourished kids or something. Thanks.