Clipping Away

We subscribe to a lot of newspapers around here.  Any given day we may have 2 or 3 delivered and 2 or 3 arrive by post.  That doesn’t count the weekend papers, for which, we feed quarters into the corner boxes.  All totaled up, it amounts to quite a stack of newsprint and a whole lot of recycling. My husband, George, has always been a clipper.  My father was a clipper too, but George is legendary in his pursuit of worthy clippings.  We’ve had countless discussions about this habit – exactly what does he do with all those thousands of snippets of paper?  Well, he files most of them! Honest.  He sends along pertinent ones to our children (who may read them but certainly don’t file them away)

He often sticks one in his book bag for immediate usage in his morning class.  But mostly they get filed away.  In lots of file cabinets.  Labeled in orderly file folders.  Folders like; Dismal Swamp, wooden boats, growing blueberries, real estate appraising, tax law, electricity, massage therapy, photography…..just to mention a measly few because the list is quite lengthy and new folders are frequently added.    I used to give him a hard time about (in my opinion) the reckless abandonment in which he tears into the news, but I’ve mellowed and come to appreciate that we all depend on his vast collection of fingertip information.  He prides himself (and amazes me) that he can usually put his hands on said article within a few minutes. 

         This finely honed system of delivery and clipping has been duly tested with our recent   
moving about from state to state.  The papers are having a hard time catching up with our comings and goings, and although we’ve been diligent about changes of address, forwarding and rerouting, it sometimes just overtaxes the best of systems.  So when we returned last week to Elizabeth City for the summer, our local newspaper carrier left a note on the morning paper indicating we’d get “caught up” the following day.   Imagine our surprise when this bundle arrived on our doorstep the next morning.  Holy __?  What the  ___?   Words are inadequate.  Some message surely got lost in  all of the shuffling.       
         What now?  Start clipping, George.