Racing the Magazine
Last week, the wife and I took a vacation with our assorted in-laws to
Ocean City.
As far as vacations go, I’m quite pleased. Lots of relaxation
with bits of fun mixed in for good measure. Luckily, the week gave me one
amusing story (at least to me) to relate.
See, one of my favorite pastimes on vacation is reading. I usually bring a couple
of books with me as well as a magazine or two. This vacation was no different.
I had brought a couple of novels, among them
Good Omens
and the
first Harry Potter
book (yep, I’m behind the curve on this one), and some gaming magazines.
So there I was, laying in lounge chair by the pool, soaking up the sun,
settling down for a good reading session with the latest issue of
Computer Gaming World
(I’m a game geek; I know it) when I noticed something
particular. The pages of the magazine were slowing coming apart. In fact, they
were coming apart one page at a time, almost in cadence with my reading.
I would read a page and the page a couple of sheets back would break free.
I should have known it was all going downhill when I noticed that I was leaving
blue fingerprints on the pages. Hmmm, I thought, I didn’t have any blueberries
today (as a side note, I’ve never had blueberries which made this conclusion all
the easier). It seems that the magazine was slowly melting in my hands; kind
of like M&Ms,
regardless of their little catch-phrase.
So what was I to do? That’s right. I needed to read the magazine before it
could fall apart on me. I would read a page and a page would fall out. I’d
read another and two more would fall out. Would I make it? Could the knight
slay the beast? What was in store for our hero next episode?
I’d like to say there was some drama involved, but there wasn’t. Any drama
that existed was found solely in my brain as I triumphantly completed the
issue in just time (so there sun, take that). The sad, crumpled mess of paper
that was once a magazine retired to the trash bin while I moved on to seek
other challenges. It seems that you do have to take life’s little victories where
you can find them.
Porter
July 28th, 2002 at 5:10 pm #
Umm… yeah, Ken. You sure showed that mean-old magazine. :)