HOULTON – Zip. Zero. Zilch.

From Zabel to Zwicker, they’re just not there.

No Zepps. No Zettermans. No Zizzas.

Despite bold, black-lettered ads in the 2002 telephone directories for Houlton and northern Aroostook County that claim the books are “the most accurate and complete” listings for the area, anyone whose last name begins with Z will find it missing from the Verizon white pages.

Page 122 abruptly ends among the listings for Young.

The incomplete directories started showing up three weeks ago minus all of the listings for Z, and a few Y’s as well. It was about that time that Verizon officials also learned the names were missing.

In all, about 40 to 60 names were left out of the book, according to Elizabeth Tusing, Verizon Information Services media spokeswoman.

Zowie!

People whose names happened to fall into the no-phone zone weren’t too concerned.

When called at home, Kathleen Zolin of Merrill said she noticed about two weeks ago that her name was missing from the book and called the company. So far, her non-listing hasn’t caused her any problems.

Melvin Zeigler of Stockholm echoed Zolin and said he was aware that his name was not in the book, but didn’t think he’d missed any calls because of it.

“As long as the wife’s home, the phone rings constantly,” he said.

One might suspect that someone at the printing plant was asleep at the press – catching a few Z’s, so to speak – when the 35,000 books destined for The County were being printed.

Or maybe somebody thought it would be a zany prank.

Not so.

“Somehow during pagination, our system dropped a PDF file that included about 60 Z’s and some Y’s,” Tusing explained Thursday during a telephone interview.

In less technical words – it was a computer glitch that apparently zapped the Z’s from the books.

There is a quality assurance process for the directories, Tusing said, but she was at a loss to explain how the names were overlooked. She speculated that unlike the A’s, the Z’s, being at the end of the alphabet, are less prominent, so no one zeroed in on the fact that they were missing until after the books had been mailed out.

In any case, Verizon has no intention of letting the names remain missing for long and is zealously addressing the problem.

According to Tusing, the company is printing addenda to the 2002 directories for The County, and will mail them to all its customers.

The addenda, she said, are expected to be mailed on, of all days, Friday, Dec. 13.