Sunday Paper

Copyright 2012

People don’t actually read newspapers.  They step into them every morning like a hot bath.
Marshall McLuhan

Sunday morning’s incomplete.  I’ve had pancakes and I’ve listened to Baroque.  The third leg of my Sunday morning triumvirate — the Sunday paper — is absent.  I checked at 8:15 as soon as I swung my legs out of bed.  My brain began itching, scratching as it always does when the paper doesn’t come.  Did the carrier not deliver, or did someone steal it?

A berth in hell is reserved for those who take other people’s newspapers.  A keen disappointment bordering on grief arises when my newspaper’s gone.  I dial the number and the automated voice appears to empathize.  She offers me a choice:  someone brings a replacement paper, or credit my account.  On Sundays I elect to have a human being deliver another paper:  a minute indulgence.

The last place I lived, my paper got stolen three out of four Sundays and weekdays.  It got so I would set my alarm for 7 a.m. Sunday and crawl to the fence to retrieve my paper hot off the delivery van.  I eventually realized that there was more than one thief, and they traded off nipping my paper.

The newspaper worked with me to nip it in the bud, providing me with a sign to hang in the laundry room:

Warning Do not steal this paper!  I deliver papers for a living.  When you steal papers, you steal money from me.  If you don’t have a conscience, then you should know that stealing newspapers can be punished under sections 484, 488 and 490 of the California Penal Code by a year in jail and a $500 fine.  –Your carrier

Half a dozen entreaties to the newspaper’s customer service office in the Philippines later, someone had the brilliant notion to bring me two newspapers a day.  The thieves could have one, there’d still be one left for me.  It was cost-effective for them to give the thief a free paper than to deal with me.

Eventually I let go, zen-like of my doubled newspaper subscription.  The thief stopped taking the paper once they began delivering two, as if jamming the moron’s brain (“which one to steal?”).  Of course I could purchase a paper at 7-11, though it’s more than twice the cost of having it delivered.

Neighbors, read the online version, or have news texted to you.  Leave me to old-fashion newsprint.  This morning the carrier delivered a paper to me, along with a note with his direct phone number.  I called:  did they deliver a paper which someone took, or did they mistakenly not deliver today?  The carrier wasn’t telling.

I’m content to have my Sunday paper, but I told the carrier to write my apartment number on the wrapper.  Recently another resident in the neighborhood left a sign on the sidewalk:  “If you must take my paper, please use the intercom to call me first and get my permission.”

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