Bad, bad, bad becks newspaper. The comings, no-shows and anticipation of it all

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

You just never know. Will I or will I not receive today’s paper? It’s a crap shoot. Don’t think I don’t write the date down if it don’t come, to get reimbursed. Hey, people newspapers ain’t cheap, no more.

Believe in or not this thread is inspired by the ‘Life hacks’ thread. I swear.
Just you wait and see.

When the paper comes, first I remove the rain sleeve. It goes in a bag for Ivy. She crochets them.:thinking:
Then goes the rubber band. Save that. I know, I know. I’m a hoarder.
Then…
I smell. I love the aroma. I’m addicted to it. This takes a minute. Or 5. It’s sick. I think I need help.

I spread out the paper, sitting on the floor. Reading the front page. Noting if I wanna read the rest of the story later. I remove the financial pages and put them to the side(you’ll need to remember this). I read the obits to see if I’m there.

I find the crosswords and segregate those to my table. I look at the food and entertainment section. I rarely save a recipe. I look to see if the Lil 'wrekkers community theatre has an ad. And new restaurants that may have opened.

I pull out the comics for the kids. Sometimes I do that puzzle. Not the sudoku. Never that. Ugh!

Then I smell more. I told you I need help. 12 steps, maybe?
I chase fresh laid asphalt, too.

I start fold up, after that. Others might wanna see headlines during the day. My crosswords are tucked and folded just right. Ready to go if it’s a dialysis day, otherwise on my table with my pen attached.

All except the financial pages. I told you.
Here it is: they are the only pages that clean mirrors and windows properly.
I promise. I’ve tried them all. Can’t explain it. Not sure if there is any science behind it. Don’t really care. I know it works.

That’s my ‘life hack’ if you will.

Yep. My paper came today. :smiling_face:

2

i knit old plastic shopping bags. i call it plarn. plastic yarn. what does ivy make with them? i make odd baskets and beach/larger shopping bags. yes, a shopping bag made from shopping bags.

i haven’t read an actual paper paper in quite some time. i did go looking for some during my recent painting the walls weekend.

3

Ivy makes totes. They are incredibly strong.
She’s amazing.

4

I sometimes pine for the days of mimeographed tests and worksheets. Each kid would sniff the stack before handing it to the kid behind us. I suspect mimeographed paper was a gateway scent that led to us sniffing newspapers. And don’t get me started on the wonderful scent of books.

Sign me up for that 12-step program.

5

Oh god. I loved that smell.

6

Me three!

7

Old library books mmmmm

8

Oh yes. The library smell is one of my favorites. Yummy!

9

How is Ol’ Blue?

10

Oooooh…I probably haven’t experienced that smell in many years, but I can absolutely picture it, and it’s tremendously nostalgic for me.

11

[pedant] Spirit duplicator aka Ditto™.[/pedant]

Mimeograph involved cutting a stencil and forcing ink through it onto the sheet. While it had an odor of its own it was no match for the sweet, sweet solvent smell of a stack of Ditto papers.

12

I remember helping one of my 3rd-grade teachers on a ditto apparatus that had a hand crank…and the many wasted papers when they were too smeared to use or the ink dried near the end of the run and you couldn’t read them …

13

Ooh that smell
Can’t you smell that smell
Ooh that smell

14

That takes me back. In the days when kids had to collect from customers, we had one older lady who saved up the rubber bands and then gave them to us in a rain sleeve, in place of a tip.

She apologized for not having a regular tip. But if you have to pay for the rubber bands, getting free ones is a solid tip.

15

Wait. The kids wrapping and delivering the newspapers had to buy their own rubber bands? That sux.

16

It’s part of that whole “you’re not an employee, you’re a contractor” thing. The newspaper sold them to us cheap.

17

By that thinking you should have been buying the papers as well. Wholesale, of course. :roll_eyes:

18

It’s been awhile, but I suspect we were.

19

We stopped getting a newspaper (the Washington Post) delivered when we adopted the kiddo back in 2009. All of a sudden that leisurely 45 minutes between the alarm and getting my shower was GONE, and any other spare time went with it.

After a couple weeks, the papers had piled up, and I realized things weren’t gonna get any better. I turned what was left of the subscription I’d already paid for into a Sunday-only, but I quickly found out I didn’t even have time to read much of the paper if it only came once a week. So I let all that lapse.

He’s 15 now, and I have a bit more time in the mornings now, but in the meantime, of course, my habits have changed, and I pick up my news from various places on the Web. But after I retire at the end of the year, I may try a dead-trees subscription again.

There are things I miss about a dead-trees paper. Like the comics all being on a couple of pages, instead of having to click through to each comic strip separately.

And airfare ads: sure, if I’ve already decided I’m going somewhere in particular, I can find the cheapest fares. But the airfare ads worked in the other direction: a list of destinations and the sale prices to each of them. “Hey, we can get to Iceland for only $299! Why don’t we do that, I’ve never seen Iceland.” That sort of thing. And if there’s anything remotely like that on the Web, I’ve never seen it.

And without the physical paper, I’ve stopped reading the sports news too, just because it involves going to places on the Web that are off my beaten path on the Web. I have no idea what’s going on with the Nats these days, haven’t for years.

20

That’s how the Pittsburgh Press (RIP) did it. The manager would stop by every week to collect what I owed for my newspapers.