A few years ago, we had as many phone lines in our home as we did people living here. There was our home number, my business line, a fax number, and a line dedicated to dial up.
When we got out of the dark ages and signed up for broadband cable, we were able to get rid of that dial-up phone line, bringing us down to three lines. Then when we moved earlier this year, we decided that, in this day-and-age of PDFs, we rarely needed to send or receive faxes, so we no longer needed the fax phone line.
Now we’re down to two phone lines, which I know Verizon knows because I’m billed for only two lines each month. Why is it, then, that this past Saturday, I arrived home from my daughter’s soccer game to find eight new phone books tossed on my driveway? We now had four full-sized white-and yellow-paged phone books, and four mini-me versions of the Yellow Pages.
What a waste of paper and resources it is for the phone company to be so careless with phone book delivery. Also, it feels so clueless that the phone company would be spending time and money on a physical phone book when it’s so easy to go online to Switchboard.com (full disclosure: I used to write a marketing newsletter for the company) or SuperPages.com.
I’ve got enough clutter issues in my house without figuring out what to do with eight new phone books, plus the three I have from before my move. So we’re putting some of the phone books in the recycling bin and tossing the others in the kindling pile. We burned one of the books last night in the fireplace, and it stayed aflame for a good hour or so.
One positive part about my multitude of phone books: I discovered that there’s an entire section of coupons to local businesses in the middle of the book–things like a chimney sweep, the local pizza parlor, Mr. Rooter, etc. There are also “fun”-related coupons to a music store, the local zoo and the minor league team nearby. So I’m tearing out those coupons, and then getting rid of these books, for which I really have no phone-related purpose.
It feels so horrible to be throwing stuff away, but like the gift you receive that you don’t like, can’t return, and have no use for, sometimes you’ve just got to toss it in the trash. That’s better than letting your guilt make you keep something you really don’t want or need.
Now I’ve got to figure out if there is some number I can call or website I can log onto at Verizon to opt out of physical phone books in the future.
READ LEAH ON HOME GOES STRONG
