# I miss old-fashioned phone books. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 11, 2018, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224 "2018-04-11T16:19:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/21 "2018-04-12T12:20:38Z")
What I miss are the White Pages. Businesses have made it easy to find them but to my knowledge there is no more city or localbregion of listing people by their name. All the websites likevwhitepagesdotcom seem to be pay for or scam sites. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/22 "2018-04-12T13:28:38Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > Several years ago one of our church officers casually mentioned “Oh… the phone book bill came and I signed for it” > > ? > > I told him that Yellowbook or something similar had been mailing scammy fake bills to us for years, with all kinds of scary print like “Final notice” and so on. I just kept throwing them out. > > But he fell for it and signed one of them :eek: > > Sure enough, a couple of months later we received a bill for a few hundred dollars, complete with a copy of his signature printed directly on the bill–that sealed the deal for me, proving that they were expecting resistance and were operating in bad faith. > > We kept ignoring the bills and nothing ever materialized from it. That was over ten years ago, so I hope it doesn’t come back to haunt us. > > Anyway, crap like that is what remains of the fine trusted yellow pages we once knew. Ugh. The first time I got one of those I was just about to do the same thing. I told the boss I was renewing the ad and he stopped me and told me to look closer at it. Sure enough, it wasn’t the Yellow Pages, it was something with a similar name and the charge was four or five hundred dollars (as opposed to something like 100). I threw it out, but even a decade or more later we still get those same ‘renewal’ cards and faxes. We also still get calls for toner, but not very often anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/23 "2018-04-12T13:47:01Z")
Visiting \*Bodega Bay \*is way too dangerous without phone booths now. Way too dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![MindsEye\_Watering](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindseye_watering/32/3619_2.png) [@MindsEye\_Watering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindsEye_Watering)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/24 "2018-04-12T14:29:32Z")
Why is this thread in The Pit? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/25 "2018-04-12T14:47:02Z")
> [@MindsEye\_Watering](#): > > Why is this thread in The Pit? Because OP was too lazy to click on MPSIMS. He’s only _phoning_ it in. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/26 "2018-04-12T14:49:05Z")
> [@anomalous1](#): > > That sounds fun! He didn’t try to mask the sound? People just didn’t care? That’s awesome. It was loud, but not enough for people to really care. I had a roommate in college to whom I told this story and he would practice shooting in his apartment with the music just turned up really loud (!?) How he managed to get away with that, I don’t know. This was right before I moved into the apartment with him. At one point, maybe a day or two before I moved in, he went into what became my closet and shot through it. He apparently didn’t allow for the fact that these are not exactly concrete walls or anything (just drywall, I presume) and drywall doesn’t have the stopping power against a Sig Sauer P226 9mm. So he shot through my closet wall, the bullet went through into his closet on the other side (and through all his fancy silk dress shirts, hahaha) through the other wall, into the hallways, and eventually buried itself in the wall between our apartment and the stairway entranceway. Kids, do not try that at home. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/27 "2018-04-12T15:00:25Z")
For home repair, I use sites like [homeadvisor.com](http://homeadvisor.com), [angieslist.com](http://angieslist.com), and [yelp.com](http://yelp.com) to find what I need. Just be aware that the reviews have to be taken with some skepticism since you don’t know who really wrote them. Google maps are also useful. Bring up a map of your area and then search for “garage door repair” and you’ll see the nearby businesses. I also miss the classic yellow pages we had back before the internet. Those days are long gone. Even though there are still phone books, I never use them since so few businesses are listed in them. Garage door springs are straightforward to replace for a pro. It’s not unusual for just some handyman to do it. So don’t necessarily be put off if the repair person is not a big business. And they might do full garage door installation as well, but would buy the panels at that time of installation. So it’s totally possible for a garage repair person to just operate out of their house. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/28 "2018-04-12T15:05:19Z")
Another thing about telephone books going the way of the dodo: they were always a great prop when someone wanted to show off and tear one in half. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/29 "2018-04-12T15:29:54Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > Another thing about telephone books going the way of the dodo: they were always a great prop when someone wanted to show off and tear one in half. Well, sometimes it took [a bit more than human effort.](https://mythresults.com/phone-book-friction) ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/30 "2018-04-12T23:21:02Z")
I prefer Google local results to be honest. That’s how I found my garage repair guy last year. Found plenty of local people with reviews. Same with my AC. I still get the paper phone books… or I did until recently, I think. I put them straight in the recycling bin. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224/31 "2018-04-13T02:29:56Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It was loud, but not enough for people to really care. I had a roommate in college to whom I told this story and he would practice shooting in his apartment with the music just turned up really loud (!?) How he managed to get away with that, I don’t know. This was right before I moved into the apartment with him. At one point, maybe a day or two before I moved in, he went into what became my closet and shot through it. He apparently didn’t allow for the fact that these are not exactly concrete walls or anything (just drywall, I presume) and drywall doesn’t have the stopping power against a Sig Sauer P226 9mm. So he shot through my closet wall, the bullet went through into his closet on the other side (and through all his fancy silk dress shirts, hahaha) through the other wall, into the hallways, and eventually buried itself in the wall between our apartment and the stairway entranceway. > > Kids, do not try that at home. Heh, I had a roommate that was cleaning his revolver one day, then loaded it. Then he wrapped it in a pillow and walked toward the back of the apartment. Curious, I followed him. He proceeded to fire it into the floor of the apartment (ground floor). It made less noise than dropping a phone book on a tile floor. Same apartment, pistol and roommate, posing as the Outlaw Josey Wales in the bathroom mirror, serape and all. I tell him to get out of the bathroom, I need to shower. Nitwit cocks the pistol and poses harder. After he’s done showing off he tries to decock it, only it won’t cooperate. He brilliantly decides to fire it into the fucking counter top. I fixed that with acrylic paint and cardboard. We got our entire deposit back from that place. Guns had to be outside before they were loaded after that. I enjoyed them too, but no more shooting anything inside the damn apartment! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-fashioned-phone-books/812224.md?page=1)