Wednesday, April 29, 2015

A to Z - Y





For my A to Z Challenge theme I will be posting items that are no longer with us or are close to becoming extinct.

These are great items to use if you are trying to set a time period in your story or to stay away from if you want your story to be timeless.

Another tough letter.

Yellow Pages  The Yellow Pages used to be a necessity. They were the only way to look up the businesses in your area and the phone numbers of friends, associates and co-workers. I felt like such a grown up when my phone number was listed.  They were also the booster seat. We didn't have fancy plastic seats with straps if you couldn't reach the table you sat on the phone book.
Now they are a nuisance and when they are delivered they go straight into the recycle bin and I mourn the loss of all those trees for naught.  We do get less and less of them delivered each year and I doubt we will be getting them delivered much longer.  The old fashioned book has been replaced by the internet.

When ever I think of a phone book now I think of this episode of Mythbusters.  Check it out.



Happy writing!

19 comments:

  1. I remember the last time phone books were delivered to my area. They just sat around on doorsteps for months, no one picking them up. There was a whole stack in my apartment building that never got touched. It was kinda sad.

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    1. We used to get a ton as well but now we are down to two a year. They go straight from the drive into the recycle bin.

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    1. I find I am never at home when I am looking for something.

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  3. Three of four different companies drop the Yellow Pages on our driveway. I keep them around on the rare occasion that I need to use them.

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  4. I keep one of them. It's a habit. I never use it anymore.

    I never dreamed a phone book could hold together so well.

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    1. It was pretty shocking how much force it took to pull them apart. I have no idea what use that information could ever be in my everyday life.

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  5. Pretty sure we have one (somewhere)...I used to use it for naming my characters. =)

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  6. I remember that episode. They couldn't tear it apart.
    I feel bad as well - that's where our phone book ends up. Such a waste.

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    1. Thanks Alex! I really appreciate the follow. I'll do the same. I joined ISWG a month ago but got so caught up with this I have not done anything with ISWG yet.

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  7. I used to sit on phone books in place of a booster seat when I was little too LOL.

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    1. I thought a lot more people would have done that. Thank you for the validation. I would have be sad had no one commented on that.

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  8. I've kept one "just for emergencies" although I have no idea what kind of emergency would lead me to using it. Booster seat maybe?

    @ShonnaSlayton from
    Shonna Slayton YA Writer - Blogging the 1940’s from A to Z

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  9. They are going the way of the dodo. Straight into recycling. (I don't mean the dodo got recycled. That might have been nice!)

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    1. How do you recycle a living thing? Sounds a bit painful.
      If they go the way of the dodo quite a lot of trees won't!

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  10. Hi KAT - what a great myth buster ... yes sadly phone books are out of date ... and get recycled ... but I do split mine apart ... I'd never seen the clip: fun .. cheers Hilary

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