June 21st, 2019

I've written before of my newspaper addiction.  I don't want to repeat myself so suffice it to say that for me, a day without a newspaper is a day without sunshine.   Even on day when the news isn't especially "newsy" I have a compulsion, a need,  to start my day by  reading the paper.

But the past seven days have been a little different. It's been a weird week for newspapers for me.  This is how it went:

This past Saturday, I could tell immediately that it had been a rather slow news day.  Anyone could tell.  Here you are, Saturdays newspaper and there is a photo of a bird.  On the front page.  It's an Egret which is not even an unusual bird here. They are literally everywhere there is water. We live on an island. We are surrounded by water. And the bird is not even doing anything unusual.  It caught a fish.  So what? That's what they do.  They catch and eat fish. All day, every day.  And this was on the front page.  I read the paper anyway.  

The Sunday paper was fine it was just strange because I didn't get around to reading it until the end of the day and that just felt wrong.  Because it was Father's Day, it was a day that was all about Tim.  He was the most important thing all day.  Therefore, my need to read the paper waited. The day felt a little upside down. Reading at the end of the day instead of the beginning feels strange. Not a big deal. Just out of the ordinary. 

Mondays paper was nonexistent.  What the heck? I walked out to the end of the driveway and .......nothing.  I looked to the left. Nope. I looked to the right.  Nope.  I looked under the car and in the bushes. No newspaper.  Dang.  When I came inside I told Tim who contacted the newspaper who promised to deliver it with Tuesdays paper.  Monday felt wrong all day.

Tuesday, both newspapers arrived stuffed into one plastic sleeve.  So I read Mondays first and then Tuesdays.  So I suppose it was a bonus newspaper day. Still while I was glad to read the Monday paper, it was day-old news y'know?

On Wednesday we always receive two papers anyway, both the National and World Newspaper - the Herald and the local Newspaper - The Gondolier Sun.  The Herald was double bagged because it was pouring rain. I mean the full-on gullywasher, Florida Rainy Season kind of downpour typical this time of year.  Because that newspaper was double bagged, it was completely dry despite lying in a puddle in the driveway.  The Gondolier Sun, however, was single bagged in the same puddle and completely totally entirely drenched. dang.

It was so wet in fact, that I couldn't even peel the bag off.  I had to cut the bag off the wet newspaper and then spread it out in the utility room on the floor with a fan on it, hoping it would dry.

  The thing about a wet newspaper is that the ink runs. My hands were covered by the time I was done laying it out on the floor, it was on my shirt, on the rug in the utility room, essentially everything that it touched had ink on it. So severe scrubbing followed.    Wet newspaper is also very fragile.  It tears if you look at it too hard.  So I didn't even dare open it. I just ever so gently separated sections of the paper before laying it down.

Once it eventually dried, the ink had bled through from one side to the next so badly that it was unreadable. Dang.  After all that, I threw it into the recycle bin, unread.  I later found out that there was an interview of a friend of mine in that particular days paper.  Dang again.  

So I went online hoping to read the article there.  Nope you need a super secret password to read a newspaper on line.  We subscribe to the paper so I'm sure that we have a password, but of course I have no idea what it is.  I had to to ask Tim the next day  for the password so that I could, at long last, read at least that one interview.

Yesterday's newspaper arrived with no puddles, no rain and no problem but missing one section.  Let's see here's A, here's B and here's D.  What the heck?  What happened to section C?  Drat.  I was C-less.  C is the section with the funnies in it.  Which, as we all know, is the most important part of the newspaper!  No funnies yesterday.  It was NOT a funny day.

Today's paper is sitting on the kitchen counter. I haven't even looked at it yet.  It has arrived. Check.  It's not wet. Check. I haven't bothered to see if all of the sections are there yet.  All in all, it has not been a good week for newspapers at this house.  But hope springs eternal.   

And who knows?  Maybe some of the news in the paper is actually good news for a change.  That would make it a perfect news day!

Have a GREAT weekend!