There are several crimes for which I believe highly amusing and appropriate punishments should be devised. Driving 80 in a 100 zone and speeding up when people try to overtake. Telling someone who won Eurovision before delayed telecast, and today I have added to this list: the heinous crime of taking the comic and/or crossword pages out of a communal paper.
I was innocently sipping my tea at the local cafe, flicking through the News Limited publication available, and when I got to the back, I found no funnies. I checked the index, found the magic number and turned to where it should have been. Alas! The page was gone! What fiend had taken someone else’s property as their own, ignoring the well being of others? What News or classified inches had I missed from the attached pages? I will never know.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a moocher of the daily rag, I subscribe to 2 Fairfax papers, and read News Limited online. But quite frankly the Murdoch papers have better comics, and don’t seem to show them on their Tabloids’ web pages. As a result I return to the time honoured pastime of reading in the coffee shop, and every good coffee shop has a paper.
Now there is nothing wrong with taking a coupon, if there is only ads on the next page. Or grabbing the TV programmes if the place is closing, and you have asked. But this was 4pm! An hour at least before closing, and I was robbed of my comics! I mean, uh, crosswords and intellectual stimulation.
Now normally I would associate this with a larger breakdown in societies values, increasing rudeness and the issues of narcissism in youth, but a) do young people read the paper? and b) I really just want to know what the Phantom did. The Ghost who walks, man who never dies, would not approve of stolen comics. I’m sure of it.
What are your pet peeves?
