So a friend who reads this blog asked me to explain this from my last entry, I quote myself:
"I'm feeling the same as when I cancelled our subscription to the Journal-News years ago because of a letter to the editor re: new crossword difficulty relative to the time it took a man to poop. Yes, that happened."
This one's for you Pete. When we first moved to our little village of Nyack, we thought it would be smart to subscribe to the local newspaper. Because...current events/local news/get-to-know where you live. This is what we learned quickly:
Nyack is a liberal pond in a pretty conservative forest.
The Journal-News is a terrible paper.
That's it in a nutshell. We kept the subscription to basically just read stories about Nyack, the op-ed page, the comics and the crossword (easy). One Monday morning, the faboo hubby went to work early and we didn't have our usual coffee together. After I'd gotten the (then) Boy off to school and we had our usual check-in phone call.
"Hey! How was the commute?"
"Good. How was the boy?"
"Usual Moanday, what's up?"
"We need to cancel our subscription to the Journal-News."
"Really? Finally something so epically stupid?"
"Yes, but I'm not going to tell you what. You have to read the whole paper and call me when you figure out the article that was the last straw."
Yay! A game!
"Okeyday! I'll call you back!"
When I read the paper, any paper, I have an order. Recreational sections first, hard news, op-ed. Don't ask, it's just my thing. So I followed my usual order, even re-scanning/reading sections regardless of the intellectual pain that caused. And then I got there. The op-ed page. I read the editorials...nope. It was in the letters to the editor section. There were often letters here that bordered on offensive, ridiculous and sometimes plain stupid but there it was. The Crossword Letter.
The J-N had changed it's crossword to a slightly more difficult format. Which I had noticed and appreciated as I try to do the daily NYT puzzles and these were pleasantly easy. But apparently not everyone was happy with the change. A gentleman from somewhere in-county, was deeply upset by the new challenge. Upset enough to write a fairly long letter to the editor. Which said editor chose to print.
The gist was: I am upset. I am upset because I think you have changed the crossword. I think you have changed the crossword to make them more difficult. Because the crossword is more difficult, it is taking me longer to do the crossword; I am no longer able to finish the crossword before heading to work...very specifically because...wait for it!...because I am no longer able to finish the crossword before heading to work...while doing my "morning constitutional". Could you please change it back?
BOOM! THERE IT WAS!
"It's me! Found it! Poop and crosswords for $200?"
"Yup! You win!"
"I'm calling now. Love you!"
Part Two. Calling the subscription office to cancel.