Physical, printed copies of the phone book that I did not order

Anywhere between one and four times a year, I receive a physical, printed copy of the phone book (also known as “the yellow pages”) on my doorstep. And every time this happens, I have to check my smartphone to make sure we are in fact, in the year 2011.

Seriously, when was the last time you cracked open a phone book to find anything… a plumber, a tailor, a cobbler, etc.? All of the best (or at least smartest) of these services have migrated to the Internet – they either have their own websites, or at least have submitted their contact information to sites such as Yelp or Citysearch so that they pop up in the search results.

Which leaves me with my physical, printed copy of the phone book. The last time I used one of these, it was literally to keep the door to my apartment building’s roof open, so we’d get a nice cross breeze between that, our front door, and our sliding glass balcony door.

Physical, printed copies of the phone book: Ideally supposed to help us find products and services, in actuality a big waste of paper*.

Let’s start a petition to cease the mass printing of these phone books, and instead only send them to people and businesses who specifically request them. Who’s with me?!

*Note: It’s possible that phone books are just a big waste of paper in big cities such as Los Angeles. My brother, who recently moved to Great Falls, Montana, was having a really hard time finding an apartment. I asked if he’d checked Craigslist… well of course he had, but there were only 2-4 entries per day with regard to housing. What?!?!?!?! My mom, assisting from San Diego, called an apartment building manager in Great Falls to ask for tips on apartment hunting… the lady’s advice was to start at one end of town and drive up and down the streets looking for signs in the windows. Wow. So, keep phone books in the Midwest, get rid of them on the coasts. We’d still save lots and lots of trees from being cut down to be turned into door stoppers or something even less useful.

Parking lots that have sacrificed size of spots for number of spots

Now, this issue may be more prevalent in cities such as Los Angeles, because there are so many cars and not enough parking spots to go around. However, I’m sure that all car owners have been to at least one parking lot in their car driving lives where the line painters wanted to install as many parking spots as possible, and in doing so, made the spots extremely small. So small that I can’t squeeze out of my car without the door touching and possibly dinging the passenger door on the car to my left. So small that I assume I’ll get a door ding on my passenger side door because the driver on that side has the same issue. And people in Los Angeles, at least on the Westside, are not big, mind you.

What would have been the harm if the line painters had sacrificed at least one spot per row, if not two or three, to alleviate this headache? Less door dings all around. Perhaps this is all a conspiracy between the parking lot line painters and auto body shop owners to generate as much auto body work (and money) as possible.  

Parking lots that have sacrificed size of spots for number of spots: Ideally supposed to help us park more cars in a given lot, in actuality causing more car door dings and unnecessary body work.

Let’s start a petition to re-paint such parking lots, starting with my 24 Hour Fitness parking lot at 31^st and Ocean Park in Santa Monica. Who’s with me?!

Picking your nose in public

When your finger enters your nostril, it does not mean that a cloak of invisibility has encompassed you. We still see you. Picking your nose. And we think you're gross. Especially if you wipe whatever you've found up there on your clothing.

Unique (to put it kindly) first names

As Shakespeare so poignantly put it, oftentimes a person can be pre-judged by another based on his or her name:

“'Tis but thy name that is my enemy, thou art thyself though not a Montague. What is Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. Oh, what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection to which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name! And for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.” – Juliet

From least bothersome to most, below are the four categories of names that can cause pre-judgment. Parents, keep this in mind as you name your children, for they, and not you, are the ones who are going to have to bear the brunt of the teasing for the rest of their lives:

1.    Unique spellings of popular names

2.    Misspelled names

3.    Nouns used as names (most common among celebrities)

4.    Made-up names

Unique spellings of popular names

One popular example of this is the girl’s name Megan. There are at least TWENTY-SEVEN other ways to spell it, including: Maegan, Maeggan, Maeghan, Magan, Magen, Maygan, Maygen, Mayggan, Mayghan, Meagan, Meaggan, Meaghan, Meegan, Meeggan, Meeghan, Megane, Megann, Megean, Megen, Meggan, Meggen, Meghan, Megon, Megun. Megyn, Mehgan, and Meygan.

Not to mention the fact that some people pronounce this name MAY-gan, while others pronounce it MEE-gan. OR that Megan originated in Wales as a nickname for Margaret. How did a nickname derived from another name get two pronunciations and at least 28 spellings?!

Misspelled names

One of the most famous examples of this is basketball star Dwyane Wade. In an interview with Esquire magazine, Wade talks about his name and says, “I have no idea… I’m a junior, I got that name from my father. I asked him, my grandma said that’s how she felt it was spelled.” Ladies, gentlemen, if you want to name your child a specific name, please be sure to spell check it first. Dwyane ≠ Dwayne.

Nouns used as names

From Gwyneth Paltrow’s Apple to Forest Whitaker’s Ocean, many celebrities prefer to name their children common nouns rather than common names. Come on, like your children aren’t already going to have enough trouble as it is being the child of a celebrity. A friendship I’d like to see develop – Jason Lee’s Pilot Inspektor and Shannyn Sossamon’s Audio Science. Those two go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly… two other potential names for a set of celebrity twins?! Damn, I wish I’d suggested this to Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon before they named their twins Morrocan (an adjective, of all things) and Monroe.

Made-up names

And now, the kicker of them all, the one that really makes my blood boil – made-up names. Although I thought Bonquisha (prounouned bone-kwee-sha) was the strangest name I’d ever heard, I learned of three others that are just so ridiculous, I cannot believe they are real. But they are. So I will share them with you, so you can be just as flabbergasted as I was:

-       La-sha:  Pronounced La-dash-uh

o   Excuse me, since when is a hyphen pronounced as “dash” within a name?! My friend who told me about this name knows not one, but SIX La-shas. This blew my mind. But there’s more. One of the La-sha’s has two sons, and there names are:

-       Lemonjello: Pronounced Leh-MON-jeh-low (emphasis on the MON)

-       Orangejello: Pronounced Oh-RON-jeh-low (emphasis on the RON)

These last two actually qualify for both categories 3 and 4 – nouns as names and made-up names.

Unique (to put it kindly) first names: Ideally supposed to help our kids stand out, in actuality making them stand out but not in a good way.

Let’s start a petition to name all our children the same name, preferably their mother’s or father’s, like George Foreman did. Then we can avoid this mess altogether. Who’s with me?!

Auto-anything, such as toilet flushing, soap squirting, sink faucet running, and paper towel dispensing

The idea behind the automatic/automated-any/everything was and is brilliant – why touch the same toilet flusher/soap dispenser/sink faucet handle/paper towel dispenser that a million other nasty germy people have touched before you, when an automatic sensor could sense your presence and give you what you need without you having to do anything but be there? I’ll tell you why – because the sensors NEVER work.

Whether you try the “place your hands in a different spot every few seconds” technique, the “wave your hands frantically” approach, or any other idea you think will work, the flush/soap/water/paper towel is not going to come at your bidding. It’s just not. These machines have terribly insensitive sensors, a lag between sensing and operating, minds of their own, or a combination of all three.

Auto-anything: Ideally supposed to save us from touching various handles/buttons other people have touched and potentially infected with their germs. In actuality, auto-anythings are typically more troubling and time-consuming than they’re worth.

Let’s start a petition to bring back manual handles and dispensers… they still have them in the Midwest, and as far as I know those people aren’t any more germy than the people on the coasts. Who’s with me?!

Organization (or Lack Thereof) in Magazines

While many magazines are fun to just flip through, there are others we like to read for the articles. However, layout artists make magazines extremely hard to navigate through, with the following three reasons standing out most:

1)    No semblance of an easy to find, let alone read, table of contents

2)    Lack of consistent page numbering

3)    Stories that start on a page near the front, then continue on a page near the end

For the purposes of this blog, let’s use the August 2011 issue of Vanity Fair as an example.

Table of Contents

While the magazine and its articles did actually turn out to be quite interesting, it took TWENTY-SEVEN pages to get to the first half of the table of contents – Features (articles featured on the cover). Then, another eight pages to get to Columns, Vanities, and Et Cetera – stories, blurbs, and articles not long or important enough to make it on the Features page. However, this is just the beginning…

Page Numbering

…because once you’ve found the article you’re looking for and its page number, you still have to find the actual article within the magazine. And this is no easy task, for two reasons:

a)    The first numbered page is 32, meaning there are no page numbers on pages 1-31.

b)    Only 73 out of the 148 pages in the magazine are numbered

Stories that start near the front and continue near the end

Great, you’ve found the article’s location both within the table of contents and the magazine itself. You’ve read the first, maybe second page of the article, and then you see the dreaded, “CONTINUED ON PAGE 555.” What?! I have to hunt for the end of this story now?! Why are you people torturing me?! All I want to do is read interesting articles about Groupon and Emma Stone!

Organization (or Lack Thereof) in Magazines: Having a table of contents and page numbers is a start, however there is significant room for improvement here.

Let’s start a petition for a revamp of magazines where the table of contents all fits on a single sheet, every page has a page number, and the stories continue on linear pages. Either that, or we’ll all start reading magazines on our iPads and other tablet computers. Who’s with me?!

Self Checkout Stands at Grocery Stores

Now, let me preface this by saying, there is a small handful of reasons why self checkout at grocery stores is useful. However, the usefulness is far outweighed by the extremely irritating qualities.

First, let’s start with the good:

a)    If you are buying a few items, all of which have barcodes (aka – non-produce)

b)    You (usually) don’t have to wait for a stand; there’s usually a stand open

c)    You don’t have to make small talk with the cashier

d)    You’re not tempted to buy gum, candy, magazines, or other things you don’t need because they aren’t staring at you in the face while you’re waiting in the same way they are at regular checkout stands

And now, the reasons way self checkout stands are incredibly annoying:

a)    The sensors in the bagging area don’t always recognize that you’ve set your product down, and computer nags and nags and there’s no way to make it stop

b)    When you do have to wait in line, it’s because all 4-6 checkout stands are being used by people shopping for a family of 16/preparing for a snowstorm, an earthquake, or the Rapture

c)    Looking up produce and picking the picture of the right item for the right price is nearly as difficult as multivariate calculus

d)    Whenever you need the self checkout monitor, he/she is always nowhere to be found. Dear self checkout monitor – THIS IS YOUR ONLY JOB, standing around! You don’t have to ring up items, do price checks, or bag groceries, you just stand and wait to help customers press buttons if they need it. But when said customers need help, where are you?!

Self Checkout Stands at Grocery Stores: Ideally supposed to speed up the process, when arguably it slows the process down AND I end up bagging my own groceries. Why don’t I just drive the semi-truck to go pick up the food while I’m at it? Self-service = companies that are lazy and too cheap to pay people proper wages.

Let’s start a petition to bring back real grocery store clerks, and get rid of self checkout stands and incompetent stander-arounders. Who’s with me?!

Automated Telephone Answering Machines

As anyone knows who has needed to contact customer service for their cell phone/computer/bank account/etc., you've probably experienced a situation that goes something like this:

Automatron: "Hello, thank you for calling [insert company here]. For English, please press one. Para Espanol, oprima el numero dos por favor. Please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed. For information on directions or store hours, please press three. For information on servicing [said product from said company], please press four." And so on and so forth, except they never give you the option to talk to a real person. And to add insult to injury, although you used to be able to press zero to reach the operator, the automatron managers have wizened up. Now when you press zero, the automatron says, "I'm sorry, you have selected an invalid entry."  And then you have to listen to the entire menu of options all over again.

Now, there are two things that can happen at this point (of course, after you listen to Muzak/Kenny G, interrupted every 45 seconds or so by the automatron saying, "Thank you for staying on the line, your call is important to us" (which is obviously A LIE)):

a) You press and/or say the wrong command, and (always in a British accent, it seems) the automatron says, "I'm sorry, I do not understand your request. Goodbye." What?! Are you freaking kidding me?! I've been pressing buttons and/or on hold for 45 minutes, and you're just going to hang up on me?! I hate you, stupid robot!

b) If and when you end up speaking to a real person, you have to re-explain everything you just explained to the automatron. Not to mention, the people who answer the phone often work in other countries and have very thick accents and can at times be hard to understand. Additionally, these people often don't know anything about the product they're diagnosing for you, they're just reading from a script. In any case, why is it that I need to spend 20 minutes with the automatron, only to spend an additional 25 minutes explaining the exact same thing to a person who probably not going to be able to help me?!

Automated Telephone Answering Machines: Practical in theory, unhelpful and exasperating in practice.

Let's start a petition to bring back real receptionists, receptionists who answer phones. Who's with me?!