The Yellow Pages Game

Yesterday we received our updated copy of the Northern Virginia South Edition of the Yellow Pages - for those of you in other countries, it's the quasi-authoritative guide to local business addresses and telephone numbers.

The book is divided into two sections: one (the "White Pages," a straight alphabetical listing of NoVa businesses, from "A 1 Express Towing" to "Zyuzin Technology;" and the other (the "Yellow Pages") sorted alphabetically by the type of business. The latter section allows you to find, say, a plumber if you don't know the name of a specific plumber, and it facilitates your search by listing guide words at the top of each page, much like a dictionary. And this is gives rise to what we call the Yellow Pages Game.

Sometimes, the guide words at the top of each page give you some ... interesting ... combinations, and the Yellow Pages Game challenges you find outrageous combinations and then define them. Here are a few examples:

Abortion-Accountants. I'm not sure whether these are more likely to be employed by "pro-choice" or "pro-life" advocates.

Payday-Pest. The people who seem to come out of the woodwork with outstretched hands as soon as you get your paycheck.

Hair-Handyman. Because sometimes you need a specialist, like Praty down at the local Hair Cuttery who makes me look like a movie star every few weeks.

Fire-Flood. In case you need to order up a biblical scourge on your enemies.

Lawn-Lawyers. When you really want to sue the SOD ... I mean, SOB.

Chimney-Chiropractors. For those specialized repairs.

Beer-Birth. Whatever helps the woman get past labor.

Swimming-Tax. Good Gawd, they're taxing that, too??

Bankruptcy-Barrels. Where Donald Trump files his business records.

Medicines-Morgues. You're covered, regardless of the outcome of your treatment.

and one of my personal favorites:

Snow-Speech. What you hear from any candidate for office.

Dig out your local Yellow Pages and leave a comment to let us know what you found.

Have a good day and a good week. At least here in NoVa, we should have cooler weather than we've been suffering for the last few weeks ... perhaps Mother Nature is lulling us into a false sense of security before flipping the switch from "sweltering summer" to "snow up to your armpits."

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo