If I receive an unknown and unexpected telephone call I react like a spy on the wrong side of enemy lines. ”Who are you and how did you get this number?”
As a society, we are all deeply committed to maintaining privacy these days. No one wants to answer an unknown telephone call. There are laws that allow us to “unsubscribe” from unwanted emails. We definitely do not want sales people of any sort showing up at our door — Girl Scout cookie sales forces exempted. My mobile telephone helpfully labels almost any number not already saved in my phone as a “Spam Risk.” An awful lot of effort goes into making us unreachable by the masses these days.
TMI
All of this makes me laugh when I remember that I grew up in a time when every household had a book with every other telephone-owning adult’s name, address and telephone number just dropped off on the streets for any psycho to see, at the least any psychos in a 20-mile radius. These were left in random telephone booths, bars and other public places as well.
They even used to add a helpful notation for “Children’s Line” and list the telephone number to contact them separately. These listings were for those rich folk who had separate telephone lines just for their children. I didn’t know a single one of them, but I’ve heard stories.
Sure, you could ask to be left out, also known as “unlisted.” Don’t want to be in the book? No problem. You only had to pay a monthly fee and they would keep your information under wraps. It was basically extortion.
Then
History tells us that the first officially recognized telephone directory was printed in Connecticut in 1878. It consisted of the names and businesses of 50 people. Telephone numbers did not yet exist.
If you wanted to speak to John Smith, you just dialed the Operator and asked to speak to John Smith by name. The list swelled to more than 400 names before a year had passed. This newfangled technology was catching on.
A movement to stop telephone book delivery gained momentum 131 years later. This is in large part due to the breakup of the monopoly that had been AT&T. Customers began receiving PILES of phone directories. Some households received up to 10 different (but not by much) directories. Regional companies all wanted their directories to be the most popular.
I remember having two phone books: one called the “White Pages” for personal addresses and numbers and the other “The Yellow Pages” for businesses and commercial endeavors. Eventually, it went to just one book with the white and yellow pages together. Now it’s like the size of a Reader’s Digest magazine, a leaflet really.
That said, a friend actually spotted an actual brand new telephone book in the wild yesterday. She said she was trying to decide whether or not to toss it. “We never look at it, but I might keep it for emergencies. Kinda like that old bottle of Pepto in my cupboard.”
I was feeling put out that I didn’t receive a new telephone book. Not that I would use one, mind you, but it’s always nice to be included. I live about a mile from her as the crow flies. She’s “in town” (read: small village). We are not. I feel excluded due to our rural location.
Her reply, referencing the fact that no one wants to come up our treacherous rural drive was, “It’s the one dropped on everyone’s doorstep. For you, probably ditch fodder. In 200 years, some major archeological find will be layers of phone books under a rusty ant sculpture that was often mistaken for a dinosaur with only the barest remains of an old sign that said “Seabolt” once upon a time.”
She’s probably correct. I’m guessing that one was dropped off. It’s probably buried under a few feet of snow. The last time I recall us receiving a phone book “delivery,” they definitely threw it at the end of the driveway. It was so small even a decade ago that we never even noticed it until we had already run over it a couple of times.
With so few people having landlines, and mobile phones not permitted to be listed, today’s telephone books are but ghosts of what they once were. Today’s telephone books are so slim they would never work as a makeshift booster seat for a small child. These days, they are scarcely thick enough to prop up a table leg.
Everyone uses the internet search function on their mobile phones to look up numbers now. That’s all well and good, but you can’t as effectively slam Google against the wall to kill a bug.