Light Reading

When I got home from work today, I got caught up on how Sam’s day went. He filled me in on the various things, asked me how my day went, then he said, “Oh , and I found this book at the end of the driveway,” and he hands it to me. I tell him, “Oh that’s a phone book.”

Silence.

“Do you know what a phone book is?" I asked.

He didn’t, so I explained how in the olden days- before the internet, how most families in town would get a phone book and whoever had a phone number would be listed in there, in alphabetical order, along with their phone number, and I gave him a few examples. I told him that now, it was pretty much just business in this book, and I showed him some of these business on the inside.

He took the book back and said, “Hmm, think I’ll take a look.”

He takes the book over to the couch and after a few minutes I hear, “This is interesting. This company says that they exterminate ants, mice... and rats. Wait a minute... It also says they get rid of moles and squirrels! That’s weird!”

Since then, I’ve heard about how there are numbers in there for lawyers- even retirement lawyers, and there are numbers in there for plumbers, and there are a lot of numbers for something called the IRS.

Sam tells me that this book must have everything there is “in the entire United States.” He would know better than me. I’ve never spent more than two minutes looking through a phone book. Sam’s been over there reading it for the last half an hour.