The Cult of Gary

Darren Barefoot has a post about Yellow Pages (phone books not NIS).

A few years back my wife and I moved from a basement suite we were renting to our current apartment. Since we had never gotten our own phone book, I remember the first time the yellow pages showed up.

One day, I was packing in some groceries and I grabbed one from the entrance foyer. I put it on the table that we stored our keys on. It was the same place my parents kept theirs.. I did it out of habit.

As soon as I put it down, my wife picked it up and took it back to the entrance way. I started to protest, but then I realized that I’ve never looked in a phone book in my life. I’m 27 and I’ve always had the internet to look up businesses and phone numbers when I needed them.

There’s always a pile of the directories in the garbage room a week after they’ve been delivered. I’d wager 80% of them end up there in my building.

There should be a law that YP has to collect the unclaimed books — that would motivate them to make the list opt-in.