Telephone Book Woes

One day they just appeared. Our homes' strange circular driveway, with three different exit points, doesn't necessarily look conventional or make any sense. Nevertheless, that is no excuse for GCI Yellowpages to deposit two telephone books at the end of each of these driveways!
But there they were--6 telephone books total, all officially dumped and unwanted on our private property.

First I called GCI directly--they explained that they have nothing to do with telephone book delivery, and directed me to another number. (seriously, nothing to do with your own book?)
So I proceeded to call the phone book delivery agency, and they too directed me to another number. This 3rd number was actually more productive, as the lady on the other end apologized and said they would be by in a few days to pick up the unwanted 'materials'.
So I stacked the phone books neatly at the end of one driveway to await their departure.

Alas, three weeks went by, and nobody ever came by for the neglected telephone books. At this point, the relentless Alaskan rain had also soaked right through their crappy plastic wrap--resulting in a soggy, yellow mess.
I called the delivery/pick up number once again--and no real surprise here--a message informed me that this number was now out of service.
Ok, next plan. The dump would cost me $$ and wasn't the eco-choice, so I contacted recycling. They would of course take them, but again at a fee. They also rip them up into smaller pieces by hand, so the books needed to be dry.
Yikes, my books were wet and gross to boot. So on the next sunny day, I spread them out on the lawn to dry. The darn things started to dry, but not really. So I tried again, and again. But by the 4th try I realized these thick soggy suckers were not going to dry out. Instead they were developing mold and mildew--even better. These were not items I could conscientiously bring to our happy volunteer-run recycling center.

Now, our large rural property happens to have a strange sink hole. We don't know why, but it's about 4 feet wide and five feet deep. It's sort of off a trail, and not really noticeable. Nevertheless, it would probably be a good idea to begin filling it. Low and behold I happened to have 6 biodegradable telephone books handy.
I hauled the heavy, moldy books off to the sink hole---dumped them in and said good bye once and for all. I sort of neglected to tell my husband of this disposal plan, as I knew he didn't share my vision for what sort of items were "compostable" and thought paper goods should not be merrily hidden in the woods somewhere. Well I figured the leaves would soon cover up the contents of the sink hole anyway, so what was the point of telling him?

This past weekend we drove to Whittier to pick salmon berries. As we drove along the dirt road to the trail head, we dodged quite a few puddles and pot holes. I casually mentioned to my husband to maybe drive around the enormous puddles instead of through them, stating: "you know I get nervous going through deep puddles, as you never know what could be at the bottom". He turned to me and smiled, replying: "like a pile of phone books?"