Several times a year, every house and business in town is delivered these strange, unsolicited cuboids of pressed tree parts compiled by competing companies. For those who have no idea what they are, let me explain.

In the old days there wasn’t a Google. There wasn’t even an Internet or a Siri or a Kindle or an iPhone. All information had to be looked up in paper made of trees, or before that on animal skins, or in Roman times on wax tablets. These cuboids were called “phone books,” and they listed numbers of “landline” telephones; these were the days before cell phones, so they listed numbers of phones tethered to a wall somewhere. Yes, people once had tethered, unmovable phones.

So these strange cuboids are an outmoded technology (pre-Google) for outmoded devices (pre-cellphones), which really serve no purpose, so almost everyone tosses them immediately into recycling so fewer trees will be cut down in a few months for the next batch of useless cuboids put out by a competing business!

Login

Please note this login is to submit events or press releases. Use this page here to login for your Independent subscription

Not a member? Sign up here.