The Phonebook Saga

[davidn]

Tern tern tern the numbers
Better not forget them
So I'll right them down here
The other one, my secret name

Strangely enough I think out of all the Silent Hill 2 endings I've got so far, the "Dog" ending has scared me the most, especially the Super Mario-like noise that plays when you use the key. I don't know, it's little things that scare me more than big shocks. No, in fact they scare me to death as well - I'm a nervous wreck. Sniff.

I'm absolutely sick of the sight of those three students on the front of the new BT phone book. Thankfully I've delivered all but four packs out of the original 46, so Mount Phonebook has vanished from the hall. Tomorrow I'll be up early flinging them at people on the industrial estate.

Of course, it wasn't too bad a job but I think I rushed it a bit - I still have four days to complete it, but all being well it should be over by tomorrow evening. Not having a car to myself is, I think, the major problem when doing something like this. However, there are a few other things that irritate me.

1. Houses with names instead of numbers

Of course, there's nothing really wrong with this - it's cute enough for whoever lives there, but it's a pain when you're trying to deliver anything, as finding these houses is basically guesswork. Even worse is when the resident has put down a name on the form but their house is actually numbered, or vice versa. (The list of houses I'm given is just compiled from the orderer's address for their house, which can sometimes be very wrong indeed, as we'll see later.) It doesn't help that Inverurie was once the fastest-growing town in Europe, so buildings are just thrown all over the place with no attempt at reason or order whatsoever (a bit like the St Andrews residence system).

2. People who live on the wrong street

I don't know what's so attractive about living on the High Street, because half the population of my delivery area decided that they lived there. In reality, most of them were down side roads, back alleys, and other places that are totally impossible to find (especially when the problem is complicated by point 1). An example is the building "Urybank", which came under the three headings of "Urybank, High Street", "Urybank, Wallace Road" and just plain "Room x, Urybank" simultaneously. In case you're wondering, the correct answer was Wallace Road.

3. Businesses who have ordered just one phone book but expect more

I've had this a few times. It's lucky I've got my natural charm, because otherwise I think I would have been killed by now. I've calmed many an irate manager and given them my supervisor's number so that they can bother him instead.

4. People who think I'm trying to sell them something

This is understandable, but when an elderly gentleman came to his door in "Market Place" (but it was actually Crosslett Court - see point 2) I thought that my waving of The Phone Book and mouthing the title of said tome through the window would have more effect than just causing him to wave me on and shuffle back inside. I could have tried to convince him that I was there to deliver something that he'd already ordered and paid for, but I decided not to and instead left him to it.

5. People who just plain don't know where they live

I've said before that people are idiots, but some of my best friends are humans. Having said that, the people who put their address down as "Nursery Lane, High Street" (no number, no name, no anything) or "ZGridSt1394018371398, AB51 0WN3D has no street, Souterhead Road" aren't exactly shining examples of intellect. Another imaginative way of doing things is to put the name of your block of flats but not the flat that you live in, making me search the building and eventually give up. I've not got the "Can't Find" column on my sheet for nothing, you know. Even the library put their name down as "Station Road" and their street as "Library". They should know better, and they're not even on Station Road.

6. Inadequately-sized letterboxes

Quite early on in my incredible career as a phone book delivery man, I realised that it saved quite a bit of time if I didn't ring the bells of the houses that I was sure of the address of (that's about 40 out of 500, then, thanks to points 1, 2 and 5) and instead hurled them through the letterbox and went on my merry way. However, some are just too small to fit the books through. I thought of a grading system for letterboxes, with "1" being the ideal size to get a phonebook through. Most of the ones I delivered to were about 0.9, which were easily solved by folding the directories over. However, the old houses on the High Street mostly have letterboxes which you'd be lucky to fit two postcards through at the same time. I can't do anything about this, of course, short of posting "¡increase-your-letterb ox-size-now%%2021gywnw" spam through their doors.

7. That's it

Well, that took longer than expected. Sorry about that. Of course, it led me to discover a lot more of Inverurie than I had ever wanted to, exploring the back roads and dark alleyways in my quest to find places like "View Cottage", which is ironically surrounded by brick walls. Finding out that Laing Court is populated exclusively by deaf people and that Souterford Road's houses have no names, numbers, or anything to distinguish them from any of the rest of them will prove invaluable, I'm sure.

Other things have been happening besides work, though - after coming home last night, I got a phone call at 6 from David Moore, who reminded me that I was supposed to be picking him and Phil up from the other end of Inverurie in half an hour and going in to Aberdeen.

I had completely forgotten about that.

However, in one of my usual performances of getting ready in ten minutes (everything I'll ever need is already in my jacket, you see) I was up there and driving in in no time. We went to see "Hulk" - I can't say I understood the plot of it because I'm sure it didn't exist. They also crammed about thirty years of history in to the first five minutes, which didn't really help. I'll say one thing, though - Ang Lee knows his transitions.

The split-screen editing was just about excusable in that film because of it being meant to be a "comic strip"... no, in fact, who am I kidding - I hated it. This isn't 24 - I was having enough difficulty following the film without chasing the frame I was supposed to be watching all over the screen. To its credit, it was just about the only film released after 1999 that doesn't use the all too familiar "jump, pause, rotate, unpause, explode" effect.

After that, we played pool for a bit and then traipsed all the way to Union Street and back for the customary McFlurries.

*Reaches for the switch to turn the fan on and discovers that the appliance has disappeared*

*Looks up to check the time and notices that the clock's stopped*

...Let's just forget it, shall we? I don't mean to write thousand-word entries, it just sort of happens.

Comments

[prophettenebrae.livejournal.com]

I know LJ cuts are hard dave... but really...

[davidn]

As Paul always says: Quit yer moaning.

ZZT?

[(Anonymous)]

Why did you leave the community? THE COMMUNITY NEEDS YOU. Honestly, your games are among my favorite. I see no sense in abandoning your people. Did you leave because you hated the people there? Or becuase you got tired of ZZT?

PLEASE COME BACK THE COMMUNITY NEEDS YOU.

[danbodaxter.livejournal.com]

...at least thousand-word entries every so often are better than people spanning a day's worth over 5-or-so posts.

Well, I should say "I feel your pain" but, frankly, I can't. I wish I could, however, since I am now addicted to Coco-Pops Crunchers and need money to sustain my addiction =(