What have you done to the paper?
At a holiday open house tonight, a neighbor approached me and said, "I have a question for you about the paper."
Normally, those kinds of statements are mood killers because they preface an anecdote about something we've screwed up or something we are perceived as having screwed up. I didn't know this woman, and this was the first thing she said to me. That's usually the worst kind. I braced myself.
"What have you done to the paper?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" I responded, thinking she was going to outline our shortcomings with the stocks, the TV book or the comics, which are the triumvirate of reader irritations.
"I use my old papers to go under the mulch to stop the weeds, and they aren't decomposing like they used to. It so wonderful and I was just wondering if you did something different because I want to tell you to keep doing it," she said.
Man, I loved that conversation.
(Thanks K&D for the invite.)
Comments (5)
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Hmmm... that's a tough one...
6 or 7 years ago, our paper came from SC, then from TN, and now from GA. Different mills, same company. But decomposing at a different rate? I'm stumped.
Posted on December 7, 2008 10:19 PM
I think there is a simple explanation to this. There is less editorial than in previous years so the amount of organic material has also decreased.
Posted on December 8, 2008 8:56 AM
Something I noticed in yesterday's paper...the job section was only FOUR pages long. There was only ONE professional job listing. If that's not a tell-tale sign of an economic emergency in this area, I don't know what is. I guess I'd better hang on to my $9 an hour job because around here, that's all that's left!
Posted on December 8, 2008 9:43 AM
Oh, oh, John, not to shatter your sense of relief, but I think you are maybe too quick to certify this woman as a N&R "Non"-Troll. I think this shows that the N&R is not p.c. and environmentally friendly and you should research why the paper isn't breaking down. There are probably some kind of toxic chemicals and stuff that is harmful to babies and all living things in this paper. I think it's terrible. I think she was just setting you up.
Posted on December 8, 2008 9:47 AM
I really think you need to get on this quick, John. It's just a hop and a skip from supporting degradation of the envirionment to say supporting other things, like a police chief that's been falsely accused of racism, and then where would the N&R be? The whole thing could come down.
Posted on December 8, 2008 10:31 AM