Where does the tome go?

This morning as I walked the dogs I saw an SUV stopping at each mailbox along the road, delivering thick phonebooks in plastic bags (it looked like it might rain).  How environmentally unfriendly, I thought.  Well, at least you can use the plastic bags for picking up after your pets, but what can you use a phone book for?

1. The obvious:  a booster seat for the vertically challenged.
2. Fuel for a fire — they burn slowly when closed.
3. An almost unlimited supply of material for paper airplanes (complete with insignia).
4. Place under your monitor to raise it to the correct viewing angle when searching for phone numbers online.
5. Once you’ve collected enough of them, you can use them as giant building blocks.
6. Open the book flat in the middle and use for a blotter for crafts projects.  Just rip off the upper pages to refresh.
7. Use as a source of stock photos – if you’re looking for pictures of lawyers and auto salesmen on a yellow background, that is.
8. They make great projectile weapons.  The only downside:  if your opponent survives your salvo, you’ve just given him the same weapon.
9. Great source of cut-out words for ransom/stalking letters.  Most words are even printed in the same font.
10. Who uses a knife for blood rituals any more?  You’ve got over 1000 paper cuts right at your fingertips.
11. Why waste duct tape when a few pages of the phone book will do nicely as a gag?
12. Use a few more for the blindfold.
13. Several phone books taped to the ankles work just as well as a cinderblock and chains.

Seriously, who uses a phone book to look up phone numbers any more?  You only have two search options:  alphabetical or by (usually only one) category.  And you have to scan the pages yourself.  No “narrow your search” option, or even a “Find” shortcut.  The information they contain is only updated once a year.  Besides, when you think of how many are distributed every year, they have a huge (physical and carbon) footprint.

So why does the phone company keep giving them out?  Well, there’s still the ad revenue.

And it helps that guy in the SUV pay for his gas.