Rant #2,899: Read 'Em and Weep

It is raining outside.
 
I should say, it is raining cats and dogs outside.
 
Sorry, I should say that it is teeming outside.
 
I went out to pick up the newspaper from the driveway, and when I brought it into the house, I found that it was saturated with water (not the one shown in the photo, but not that much different than what I have this morning).
 
I have to let it dry out for a few hours, and then, it will be readable.
 
It was so wet that pieces of the pages were falling off into my hands.
 
So I am not happy today.
 
I cannot read the newspaper in the morning when it is sopping wet.
 
And please, don’t tell me that I should feel for the deliverer on days like this.
 
When I was an adult deliverer back nearly 30 years ago—it is really hard to believe that it is that long ago, but it is—we had to double-bag the newspapers on days like today.
 
It took extra time, but it worked very well in protecting the newspaper from the rain.
 
And it also hurt like hell for some people who had to do this.
 
I remember one woman who delivered the papers had carpel tunnel syndrome, and I mean a really bad case of it, and she struggled not only with the double-bagging but with the single-bagging too.
 
But she persevered, did it, and her papers were dry.
 
I did it too, without a problem, happily, and my clients received their newspapers bone dry 99 percent of the time.
 
There are instances when even the double-bagging would not help, like in the snow at times, where the snow would seep into the double bags and get into the newspaper … and on days like that, you just know that I heard from my clients that their papers were wet.
 
Me, I am not one to complain, so I will let this go, let the paper dry naturally, and by lunch time—when I read the bulk of the newspaper anyway—the thing will be dry … I hope, because honestly, right now, It looks like it took a shower and is pretty much unreadable.
 
I know the Yankees won again … I know that the women’s soccer team will get equal pay with the men (pretty much a joke the way this is being reported, as if to say that the men’s paychecks won’t be less now, and anyway, does anyone in America really care about soccer to begin with?) … I know the war in Europe rages on … I know that our president still tries to “whip inflation now” in his own unique way (while we are nearing $5 per gallon at the pump) ... and I know that people are getting hysterical, on both sides of the equation, about having to get out their masks again to battle the persistent pandemic that many are using to keep us all in panic mode.
 
So once I get through all of that, there is pretty much nothing else in the newspaper to read, except maybe the comics, the most consistent portion of the newspaper, bar none.
 
You know exactly what you are going to get when you read “Dennis the Menace,” and you know exactly what you are going ot get when you read “The Lockhorns,” and the same can be said about the rest of the comics section too.
 
And I do believe that even in these days of lessened newspaper reading, there is nothing like reading the comics every day from a real newspaper, not an electronic one.
 
Reading the comics the old-fashioned way is almost worth the price of admission, although a subscription to the actual newspaper has completely gotten out of hand.
 
I get charged every other month, one bill for two months, and it is so pricey now that it I have thought about dropping the newspaper altogether … and in the future, as the cost of living goes up, I might have to really consider doing that.
 
It is not something that I would want to do, but the cost of the subscription has become cost-prohibitive, and in the long run, I guess I want to eat more than I want to read the newspaper each morning.
 
But for now, I am managing to do both, and do both at the same time, so I will both eat and read the newspaper for the time being.
 
I mean, you can’t eat the newspaper nor can you read your breakfast cereal, so both kind of go hand in hand, at least to begin my day.
 
That could change, and that would make me unhappy, as I have always subscribed to the newspaper for as long as I can remember.
 
Wet or not, it is one of life’s conveniences, it is relaxing even if the news isn’t, and I would really hate to give it up.
 
“What is black and white and read all over?”
 
I don’t know if the answer in 2022 is the newspaper, but in the electronic age we are in, that riddle has sort of gone by the wayside, hasn’t it?
 
I just hope it doesn’t go by the wayside for me as I enter my supposed “golden” years.