Last weekend in the Nantucket Ferry terminal, I passed a defunct phone booth: an ornate wooden kiosk used 20 years ago to frame a pay phone, provide a modicum of privacy, and hold a phone book. It appeared that this particular phone booth had been re-purposed to hold a suggestion box, or perhaps the suggestion box was also defunct. Who knows? I picked it up and shook it; it was empty. And there were no blank suggestion forms in the side slot.

As I viewed the pay phone/suggestion box combo, the following thoughts crossed my mind:
• In this bustling terminal, where customers crowded to catch the last boat to the mainland, someone might have written a suggestion if there had been pencil and paper. Notwithstanding my jaundiced view of the effectiveness of locked suggestion boxes, this particular one might as well have read: We don’t really care.
• When the phone company removed the pay phone, probably a decade ago, all that remained was an empty kiosk. The functional part of the phone booth had been stripped, leaving a useless shell.

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