Throw The Book At 'Em
One evening this week I came home to four phonebooks on my front step. Apparently, it takes that many to contain just the Northern Virginia portion of the DC Metro area. But it irritated me about 14 different ways that these phone books were sitting on my doormat. I don't even have a land line phone, so it's not like the phone company delivered them to me because I'm a valued customer. I believe that the company that manages my apartment put them there, but I can't figure out why, unless they didn't want to be responsible for throwing that many phonebooks into the landfill.
See, the phonebooks have been hanging around for a while. They've been wrapped in plastic by the mailbox hut for anyone that wanted one. Apparently no one did. Next small stacks found their way to the base of the stairs for each building; again, no takers. So someone decided it would be a great idea to hand deliver a set to each apartment. I honestly think this was so that we would have to bear the brunt of disposing of said phonebooks. For the first two days I left the books outside, figuring maybe if I just ignored them they would go away. I think everyone else in my building has taken this approach as well, because there are little piles of phonebooks everywhere you look. I finally scooped them up last night and headed to the recycling area only to find a big, new sign that said "No phonebooks." It was just too big a waste to chuck in the trash compactor, so I carried them back and set them down on top of someone else's pile. Let them deal with the guilt of throwing perfectly good phonebooks away.
But why does the phone company still feel the need to print encyclopedic volumes by the thousands? I cannot honestly tell you the last time I looked up a number in a phone book. I know there is money to be made in yellow page advertising, but maybe we can start printing fewer and charging people $2 to order a phonebook if they really want one instead of littering doorsteps with them. I understand that not every one relies on the Internet as much as I do, but the times, they are a changing. Do we need to kill that many trees?
And why does my property management insist on leaving crap at the doorstep? They won't let packages delivered by UPS or FedEx stay in front of your door; no, you have to go to the only-open-during-business-hours front office to get those. But whenever they have a raffle or flyer, they have no problem sticking it in my door, where it sometimes sits for a week announcing to the local criminals that no one's home!
I'm anticipating a friendly game of hot potato in my building as the phone books make their way from door to door. Maybe I'll get everyone to drop them off in front of the management office.
See, the phonebooks have been hanging around for a while. They've been wrapped in plastic by the mailbox hut for anyone that wanted one. Apparently no one did. Next small stacks found their way to the base of the stairs for each building; again, no takers. So someone decided it would be a great idea to hand deliver a set to each apartment. I honestly think this was so that we would have to bear the brunt of disposing of said phonebooks. For the first two days I left the books outside, figuring maybe if I just ignored them they would go away. I think everyone else in my building has taken this approach as well, because there are little piles of phonebooks everywhere you look. I finally scooped them up last night and headed to the recycling area only to find a big, new sign that said "No phonebooks." It was just too big a waste to chuck in the trash compactor, so I carried them back and set them down on top of someone else's pile. Let them deal with the guilt of throwing perfectly good phonebooks away.
But why does the phone company still feel the need to print encyclopedic volumes by the thousands? I cannot honestly tell you the last time I looked up a number in a phone book. I know there is money to be made in yellow page advertising, but maybe we can start printing fewer and charging people $2 to order a phonebook if they really want one instead of littering doorsteps with them. I understand that not every one relies on the Internet as much as I do, but the times, they are a changing. Do we need to kill that many trees?
And why does my property management insist on leaving crap at the doorstep? They won't let packages delivered by UPS or FedEx stay in front of your door; no, you have to go to the only-open-during-business-hours front office to get those. But whenever they have a raffle or flyer, they have no problem sticking it in my door, where it sometimes sits for a week announcing to the local criminals that no one's home!
I'm anticipating a friendly game of hot potato in my building as the phone books make their way from door to door. Maybe I'll get everyone to drop them off in front of the management office.
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