Book Bombs

Every day there is a revelation if you're paying attention. Today's insight for me is a WEIGHTY matter.  And I'm thinking in some way it's an awareness punishment related to my leaving the house at 6 a.m?  Up at 6 a.m. and driving to McDonalds to get me a Sausage McMuffin and Peggy a Bacon and Egg Bagel?  Honest we only do this about once a year.  It's easier than putting on shoes and driving to Safeway to get a dozen eggs. (What's the law about wearing shoes going through a drive-thru? Peggy says I should have been arrested.) 

Upon my return I am making a left hand turn angled towards the driveway.  Luckily I do a leisurely glance to my right and see I am about to be cut off by a vehicle dissecting my angle. Whilst applying pressure to the breaking mechanism I think I recognize this intruder.  But this cannot be? A U.S. Postal Service Mail truck?  At 6:15 a.m.? On a Saturday? Maybe privatizing the mail wasn't such a bad idea after all?

But  now I am further confused. As he (sporting a short haircut, but could have been Britney I S'pose.) is passing in front of me I see a huge colorful missile being launched from the open door of the vehicle.   And THEN?   KAAATHUD!!!!  Something has landed in the middle of my driveway setting off earth movement equal to a 1.2 magnitude earthquake on the Richter Scale.

You know here I've been thinking all the cracks in the concrete are the result of the many cycles of freezing and thawing.  This puts a whole new light on the matter.

So what is this colorful destructive gift from the U.S. Postal Service?  THE DEX PHONE BOOKS.  Yeah, not one, not two but three phone books sent flying from this moving rocket launcher.

I'm sorry. What is the post office doing delivering the DEX phone books?  And if they are going to do it, why can't they get out of the truck and walk them up to the porch and gently drop them from the waist?  That's what the YELLOW BOOK people did about a month ago.  (Who delivers the YELLOW BOOK?  Anybody know? The Power Company Maybe?) 

Lest you think I'm just making a mountain out of a napkin? Note from the picture above that these three books weigh a combined TEN POUNDS. That's just two pounds less than the solid round balls we competed with in high school shot put competition. Solid round balls that easily put two to three inch dents in the earth each time they fall.

Oddly this whole experience has given me a whole new appreciation of my beloved and departed mother.  As I relate my experience this morning to Peggy? She says, "Wow how would you like to deliver something THAT heavy?"  ( I was 9 lbs 6 ounces at birth.)

But let's see if we can't shed some thoughtful light on this whole issue. Why do I need three free (ha!) phone books from the Yellow Book people? And three free (ha!) phone books from the DEX people with the exact same information?  You know I don't, and neither do you?  What a strange waste of resources in the name of competition. 

And if I were an advertiser being told it's the only way to reach the consumer?  Oh, would I be furious. I don't ever look up a number in a physical phone book any more. Do you?  Don't you just look it up on the internet.  And if you are in the car don't you just let your cell phone provider look it up, and connect you for NO EXTRA CHARGE.

I'm not an impassioned tree hugger by any stretch of the imagination.  But please! What a waste of NATURAL RESOURCES. Is this the resultant product of our mangling of our  precious rain forests? Come on! We're talking 20 pounds a piece a year of useless paper lying around the house. Do the algebra!

I've been on the planet long enough to know that once something gets institutionalized?  It takes something REALLY, REALLY dramatic to turn it around. I've also been around long enough to know I'm not much of a rabble rouser. But here's a thought if someone else wants to pick up the MISSLE and run with it. 

SUPPOSE that when the mail truck comes around next year? When we see it coming...we develop a notification network?  And we are all standing out in our driveways as he/Britney does his/her drive by? And as he/Britney launches his/her DEX TEXTS on to our drives?  We just pick them up and launch them right back at him/Britney! 

(For the organizer?  I would not suggest the shot put technique for delivery.  The odd shapes would make that form of release both difficult and dangerous.  I would not want to be responsible for all the hernias. 

Rather let me suggest the Hammer Throw delivery. The books typically arrive in a large plastic bags (non-biodegradable I'm almost sure) with a handle very conducive  to the circular momentum force that comes with sending a HAMMER flying through the air with TREMENDOUS destructive inertia.

(Side Note:  I was at the Coliseum relays in L.A.  back in some ancient year? Then Olympic Hammer Throw champion Hal Connely is warming up?  Well he sort of temporarily loses his perspective on the field?  The hammer is heading for and comes down right in the middle of the bandstand. Cameras in those days were not sophisticated enough to capture the action cemented in my brain. So picture with me 40 members of the Johnny Beaudreaux band quickly warned. They are flying through the air in all directions like the finale of a fireworks show. They are preceded by their tubas and their trombones. The bandstand collapses as the ball hits the boards. You couldn't have come up with a better bit in a Road Runner cartoon. With no serious injuries it's probably not even in the Track and Field history books.)

Anyway that takes care of DEX.  For the YELLOW BOOK? I think we're just going to have to meet them at the door and drop ten pounds on their toes. (Do you suppose that's the source of the idiom "I don't want to step on anybody's toes.")

Now I'd like to say....you all do this...and the Sausage McMuffins are on ME? But let's face it.  They're not good for you.  So that's not gonna happen.