Newspaper follies

John and I agreed last night that we’d like to have some newspapers to commemorate the election. We knew we wouldn’t be the only people who wanted copies of the paper, but we had a plan. John would hit up Barnes & Noble as soon as they opened and snatch up one copy of each paper.

It was an excellent plan except for two factors we hadn’t expected. First, they only get two copies of the New York Times at the Barnes & Noble in Frederick, and both copies were gone at 9:01. John suspects Barnes & Noble employees of absconding with them before the public ever had a chance. Second, we didn’t count on out of town people asking us to get them copies of the Washington Post. I would have stopped on the way in to work, but I got stuck in traffic and I had an early meeting . I can look for the New York Times at lunch, I thought.

But by lunch, there were no New York Timeses or Washington Posts to be found anywhere. I tried three different stores. Whole Foods briefly and cruelly misled me by having papers in their bin, but they were from Sunday. Then I heard they were doing special print runs of the New York Times and the Post and there would be additional copies available this evening. Lies! I tried again after kickboxing – 2 CVS, Wawa, Giant, Rite Aid and a Bottom Dollar later, I had found no papers. My poor mom was out at the same time, trying to do the same thing (although she got a copy of the NYT this morning at Starbucks, consarnit) and having no luck. In the end, we each managed to find the final couple of copies of the special commemorative edition of the Post, and that will have to do for the out-of-towners.

Ironically, just a couple of weeks ago I went through the same damn thing with the Washington Times. It’s a piece of crap conservative paper that I would normally never buy, but someone I know was quoted in an article and I thought he’d like a copy for himself. I ran all over town trying to find a place that had the Saturday edition, but they all had a Friday/Saturday edition instead, which was the wrong one. Who knew newspapers were still so relevant in this day and age?

For more newspaper fun, check out this link from my brother: http://www.newsdesigner.com/top50/