Our Globe and Mail newspaper never arrived this weekend, so Kevin went out to buy one. He was gone so long that I started to fear that it might turn into one of those sad mysteries … “He went out for the newspaper and he hasn’t been seen since.”
When he did come back, he was carrying zero newspapers.
He had been to four or five different shops (gas station, pharmacy, convenience store). He said people in the shops had looked at him with bafflement, perplexity, confusion, pity. Like, you mean, an old newspaper? It was as if he’d stepped out of a time warp and into the future (actually, the present), where nobody buys newspapers anymore.
I don’t know what people do while they’re eating breakfast. Or lunch. Or having a cup of tea. But I read the newspaper, and life feels off-kilter without it. Scrolling through an article on my phone is not the same experience, not at all.
Next thing you know, I’ll be blogging about how emails and texts are not the same as a nice handwritten letter. Which is true, but …
xo, Carrie
The same thing happened in our household this weekend! And I was out of sorts with no Saturday paper, until Monday morning came and brought with it two papers, one of which was the weekend edition. Needless to say, I lingered over coffee and breakfast.
Blogging’s a bit high tech Carrie, you have to write books….
Aha but then, you already did, which just goes to show that you are versatile for both eras!
Was there a Globe and Mail printed this weekend? Brett went out to get one too and also came home empty handed. Later, I was out and looked too…nothing! Had to read some of the many newspaper articles that I rip out and keep for later! Hardly made a dent!
We got our Globe and Mail on Monday morning. Printing issues, apparently. So there weren’t copies in the shops this weekend in parts of Ontario. The funny thing was the clerks’ collective responses to Kevin’s search. Most were just plain baffled as to why anyone would want a newspaper. Also, he found there weren’t any newspapers available in many places.
Our paper often arrives later on Saturday mornings than during the week; a different delivery person perhaps. So this week as usual I heard my wife on the phone talking to one of those interactive voice response systems: “No paper … not at all … frequently …” As you mention, it turned out there were technical issues, but I wondered not for the first time if I should be joining the twenty-first century and reading it on my iPad. One thing is that a Saturday pleasure for me is the cryptic crossword and I can’t imagine doing that on a machine. Maybe there is a happy (to use an expression) medium.