I know it's "old school". I know my kids, as bright as they are, might not even know how to use it. I know that my friends look on with disbelief and, perhaps, horror. But I prefer using the phone book over Google, or whatever today's trendy search engine is, when I need to look up a phone number. I let my fingers do the walking.
It used to drive me crazy, back in the day, when Big Daddy would just dial 411 without a second thought and spend 25 cents to get a listing. How often had I been burned by that method, and been connected to the wrong number? And these days, yes, YOU, Mr. Annoying AutoFill McAutoCorrect, I DID mean to spell Haircut with a K! I think pulling out the book is fast enough and more straight forward.
Yes, the good, old-fashioned Yellow Pages! I love 'em! Well, to be more accurate, it's the White Pages that I love. I found that out when our supposed replacement book showed up. I have a decade-old title page with handwritten and useful, though infrequently used, numbers I like to have handy (like the actual number of our local post office, the non-emergency number to our sheriff's department and CHP, the good Chinese restaurant, the school district's transportation office, the appliance repair miracle worker). Anyway, I tucked that into the new book and recycled the old.
A few days later, after the waste collector had dutifully carted away my old faithful, I needed to look up a number and realized that the new book was yellow pages only. AND for the entire county, not just my local area. Ack! That meant that I couldn't just go to the white pages alphabetical listing, I would have to go to the proper section and sub-heading and weed through ads and other hoopla and then have to get creative with what other sub-headings or categories might be hiding the information I was looking for. The white pages has the name and the number, in bold. That's all I need. And sometimes the address to confirm proper location. Which is in small, secondary type, as is appropriate.
But today a gift was waiting on my front porch in an orange bag, cleverly disguising the yellow treasure inside. My local YP! With the WP included! Hooray!
There is a chance, albeit a small one, that my heart could someday answer the siren call of that new PYT, Siri. I haven't met her yet, but I've heard rumors that she may be just the thing to woo my heart away from YP. Don't worry, YP, you're my Pretty Yellow Thing. As long as you keep showing up on my porch, I've got a spot for you in my heart, and on my shelf.
