The other day, I was thinking about phone books. You younger readers are probably wondering which planet I’m from, but that’s beside the point. Phone books were big, two-to-three-inch-thick books listing the phone numbers of every human in a city. Every human who had a phone, at least. Many times, phone books were used as comparisons to other things for weight or size. Someone might pick up a large potato and exclaim, “Wow, that’s as heavy as a phone book.” Or another someone might grab hold of a Sunday newspaper loaded with supplements and say, “This thing’s as thick as a phone book.”
You couldn’t do that today because phone books have pretty much disappeared. Today a person can’t pick up the aforementioned large potato and exclaim, “Wow, that’s as heavy as the contact list on my iPhone.” It just doesn’t have the same effect. There’s no big fat book lying around in homes that a person can consult to find a phone number or address to find another person, or, to throw at a spouse during an argument
But what if you didn’t want to be called or found and weren’t interested in the listing service? You’d tell them, “I don’t want to be in your stinking directory.” They’d tell you,” Fine. But it will cost you X amount of dollars for every edition you don’t want to be in.” You were paying to have a service not performed. You were buying a non-service.
Neighborhood bullies developed this system way back when kids were first invented. A bully would come up and say, “Give me your bag of marbles or I’ll punch you headlights out.” You’d give him the marbles; you were paying for a non-service. This can be a learning tool for today’s young entrepreneurs. A boy or girl who mows lawns for neighborhood residents could approach a homeowner and say, “I’m going to cut your grass.” The homeowner might respond, “I don’t want my grass cut.” “Fine,” the kid would say, “That’ll be $15.”
Many individuals ride buses and other forms of public transportation. But probably 10 times the number of individuals don’t ride as those who do. What if we could ride the bus or train free but would have to pay if they didn’t want to? Transportation companies soon would be out of the red with 10 times the revenue flowing in.
I think bullies and Ma Bell were really on to something when they instituted the whole “pay for non-service” thing.
• Lest I forget to mention (as if I would), this Saturday, September 22, the Sugar Grove Library will be host to Indie Author Day. View the details at www.sgpl.org. I’ll be there hawking, I mean displaying, my book, “The Militarized Zone: What Did You Do in the Army, Grandpa?”. So come on out between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. There will be panel discussions, book-signings, and guest speakers.
In her infinite wisdom, Library director Shannon Halikias asked me to be the host at a discussion from 3:15 p.m. to 4 p.m. with other authors to share our knowledge of traditional publishing, self-publishing, and the effects of nude mud wrestling on the future of ebooks. Just kidding about the wrestling topic. The only nude mud wrestling will take place in the West Wing and only will affect Twitter tweets. There’ll be plenty of other actual authors in attendance should you become tired of heckling me.
The best part is that it’s all free. Except if you don’t want to attend. Then it will cost you $20.
• Editor’s note: Wayne Johnson recently received an award in writing competition from the 2018 Writer’s Digest for a screenplay.