Stick a pin in the phonebook. See where it lands. Make the call. Does everyone have a story? Five writers find out

When the editors first broached the idea, I was sold. Crazy experiment, free lunch, then write about it. What could go wrong?

Well, here’s the list:

Hurdle 1: Finding a phonebook

They don’t make those on my side of town anymore.

“Can I type a random letter into the community contacts forum and pick one of the entries that come up?” I asked.

“Pin. In. Phonebook,” Miriam said.

Okay then. I called my mother for help, but she was pretty certain she hadn’t seen a phone book around in years.

“You can look for yourself, though,” she kindly invited.

After nearly half an hour of creeping through my parents’ bookshelves — and repeatedly explaining to my brothers why asking strangers to meet me in random places was not a bad idea — I baruch Hashem found a tattered volume from a decade earlier.

Hurdle 2: Finding a name in said phonebook that I can actually call

There were a few false starts with the pinpricks. Apparently Mishpacha couldn’t cover any tickets overseas, so I had to keep going until I landed on a local number. Then I had to go halfway down the page until I found one I could call.

The official project rules were: no one related, and no one close enough to you that you’d invite them to a family simchah. I made up my own addendum in which I disqualified anyone whose son I’d dated. Not related, and not close at all, but still…