Scratching the Itch...

The phone rings in the middle of dinner. The phone rings at 7:00am on Saturday morning. The phone rings while I'm in the shower, under the car, or up to my eyeballs in a project. Always, always a question: "What time do you open?" "What time do you close?" How do I get there from ..." This pattern has continued for twelve plus years. There it goes again! Actually, that was my wife calling for me to pick her up, but you get the point.

Being a reasonably intelligent person, I have asked callers where they obtained the number they called. Through that process, I've tracked down a number of sources for the erroneous information and managed to get the error fixed. One would think that after 12 years, the problem would go away. After all, no reasonable publisher would print the same incorrect information over and over for that long, would they? Eventually, like worn out dollar bills and old tee shirts, the existing documents would go away. But no!

The calls continue. A major breakthrough has just occurred. I just Googled my telephone number and discovered that my personal home phone number is on page two hundred something of Fodor's USA, "The King of Guidebooks," according to Newsweek in the "Completely Updated (their words)" 28th Edition.

I have written to Random House, but there's not much they can do at this point. There is only the slightest satisfaction in knowing the source of my annoyance...