Telephone Books

Since I forgot to mention it anywhere on the blog, I’m not in Trier this weekend. My contact there is ill and rather than spend time with somebody who would rather be in bed, I stayed in Weimar.

I leave in the morning for Rotterdam.

I’ve had a fairly busy day today, commencing with a trip down to the post office where I dropped off a small package to be mailed to the United Kingdom for 6€. While I was there, I remembered to pick up the newest phone books for the region–it seems that rather than the practice I remember growing up, where phone books are boldly dropped on the door step once a year, here one gets a card in the mail, and then you have a small window of opportunity to go down and pick them up.

There were a fair number of people trundling off with their two books, but it reminded me of a couple stories.

First, last spring I had some small people visiting the Kleine Schloss for dinner once. I was a bit concerned at the time because I wasn’t certain that they would be able to sit at the table without some kind of booster seat. I was discussing this with my mother and she made the briliant suggestion of using the phone book to boost the children. I laughed, because whilst any random volume of the Denver Phone book would be enough to boost most children to the height of the table, the entire collection of Bloomington phone books (that is to say, the one published by the phone company and the other book, combined) might be enough to raise somebody an inch.

Second, the approach taken here in Germany would benefit my parents greatly since they have a phone book problem of obscene proportions. In the past they always wanted two sets of phone books, but only got one, so they would call to get an extra set or two–I forget the exact details. One year this information took to the system and ever since then they have been getting something like five complete sets of the Denver phone book (something like three gigantic books), which is way more than anybody rightfully needs. The challenge has become getting rid of the extra sets. Fortunately since I have lived too far away,I have not been saddled with any of them–but my siblings who live closer fear the phone book time of year lest they end up schlepping a few extra things home.