Thursday, June 30, 2011

THE morning paper

Every morning I quietly hobble from my coffin to retrieve not one, but TWO different newspapers. I have to keep up with the daily demand for wrapping up wedding gifts, lining bird cages with paper mache and of course the never-ending need for dead fish n’ chips grease absorbing diapers . Oh sure I peruse the headlines for the important stuff too like the movie start times or the daily horror-scope. But primarily I just like to see how tall a Jenga tower of newsprint I can build to test my wife’s forklift skills on the way to the recycle bin.

We have a love/hate relationship with our paper boy even though he is actually a 40 year old man who drives an even older van in the wee wee hours of the morning. On the one hand he does give us our daily fix of inane news along with an array of conversation starters during our Pop Tart time. But you would think the guy would have the decency to place the papers neatly on my doorstep instead of ejecting papers out of the window anywhere but on the giant driveway landing zone. I think he purposely spaces his nightly emissions as far apart as possible and plants them in the wet grass, muddy gutter, or up in the trees so I can play ‘Where’s Waldo’ every morning in a 6 A.M. stupor.

The paper-pusher is just bitter because he is STILL dealing to newsprint junkies even when most of his peers have moved up in the publishing cartels to become octopi ink-milkers or ‘blah-blah’ blogging barons. It also may be due to the fact that nobody else on our street gets a morning paper anymore so he has to drive far out of his way to throw stuff ONLY at our house. Except for the ‘newsies’, what other career allows you the luxury of pitching softballs at interviewees, hitting the comic books to do research, or throwing high priced yet worthless pre-paid projectiles at your clients’ houses.

As gasoline prices rise and the route delivery biz dies, I try to keep abreast of the changes afoot for those parts as well as the rest of the lifeless body of the newspaper industry. Despite the waning few of of us die-hard, hard-headed Cro-Magnons who still need to let our knuckles do the dragging through WalMart ads, I’m afraid the ‘dailies’ destiny is dier . Yes as soon as wireless bandwidth makes that next big speed leap for the finish line, the paperless e-book revolution will definitely spell doom for my newspaper dude and his ‘van-do’ attitude. This foreboding change to my breakfast ritual may seem alien at first. But luckily in our shack's litter box, I can always take pillow-soft comfort in at least one close morning encounter, of THE paper kind!

8 comments:

  1. It wasn't that long ago that I swore I couldn't start my day without the morning paper. Guess what? I ditched it....and I'm ok with it. Embrace the electronic age.

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  2. We only have a weekly paper and Jim loves it. I get my news on the internet.

    Happy 4th of July to you and your wonderful family, Billy!

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  3. Boy we stopped subscribing to our newspaper a long time ago. I was so tired of reading the same articles but in a different location every day. And it seemed that one of the wackadoodles who wrote for the paper thought that a cat that had a liter of 37 should be front page news instead of things happening around the world.

    Bad stuff happens, ignoring it and not talking about it doesn't make them go away!

    Seems to me your 40 year old paper pusher is a little depressed and you don't want him to go postal on you so, why don't you throw him a pop tart it might help!

    Megan

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  4. Our ex-carrier always "pitched strikes." The
    paper hit our driveway exactly where we wanted
    to back out. Had to stop the car, get out, pick up the paper, then get back in --- all before the car rolled over me. I could have used the
    parking brake but that would take another action.
    Now I only miss the crosswords and the cryptograms. Cancelling the paper solved the other puzzles.
    .

    .

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  5. My husband LOVES reading the paper and he along with you, get's two also. To keep our windows and vegetation out of harms way we have a paper box to put the paper in.

    The only thing I like to stay current on is blogs! You get way better information and it's much, much more entertaining!

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  6. thanks for stopping by. it's always nice to see a friendly face. I use to read the newspaper every morning when I commuted to work by train & I worked for a lawfirm. One reason so I could see what judges were on bench & too what lawyers to dodge. lol I don't even pick up one now except for the sales papers. Have a fun & safe fourth

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  7. I LOVE the morning papers. I love the local ones, especially. Coffee, paper, kittens running amongst it all...bliss! Cheers from Ontario Cottage Country!

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  8. I have to leave the country to avoid the papers - a move that does work!

    Happy 4th July

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