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Here is a headline from the Washington Post yesterday: The DC “Area Hunkers Down, Stocks Up For The Storm.” Hype over what could be the largest storm to hit our nation’s capital was in full force with the Doppler gangs all over the place and predictions growing more and more ominous as the day went on. I was one of the idiots who decided to leave work a tad early…(5:30pm felt early) yesterday to hit the store just in case the weather people came close to predicting a little storm. All I needed was toothpaste, oatmeal and cheese-- the last item so I could ensure that I got to eat my favorite homemade bean dip on Super Bowl Sunday. Boy was that a bad plan. Supermarkets in DC were overrun with nutty people stocking up on cans of everything, jugs of water and anything else their snow brains could think of. It felt like Y2K all over again, a time when the country thought the world, or at least the technological world, was about to end.

Well, I’m somewhat happy to say that it looks like those Doppler gangers may have been right. But then again, when you estimate snowfall of anything between 12-28 inches…not really sure you can consider yourself accurate. I can run the MOE on that (that’s Margin of Error for you non stat heads out there), and it’s not good. That said, at 10am this morning when NPR announced that the snowfall prediction had been increased to 30 inches today, I had to believe we were in for it.

So, here we are snowed in and totally sane. Why? Because the Washington Post (either accidentally or on purpose) delivered my packet of “Saturday” ads and things I would usually get tomorrow. They came bundled in my Friday morning paper. This sack of extras included what normal newspaper subscribers would get on Sundays—Parade Magazine, the comics, the advertisements, coupons and, most important to me, the Post magazine which has the big weekly crossword puzzle. The Post delivers this on Saturdays as a courtesy to their 7-day a week subscribers. But I’ve never had it delivered on a Friday.

Here’s where the “accidently or on purpose” phrase is key. I have an ongoing battle with the Washington Post. Sometimes I love them and sometimes they drive me crazy. As an admission, I love reading newspapers in print. I love the way the feel in my hands, I love the strategic way I read them (Sports first), and I love the way my day feels better after reading a paper. In an era of dying print subscribers, I am the ideal customer.

Why my struggle with the Post? Delivery is a problem. If it’s 7am and I don’t have a paper, I get cranky. Worse have been the weeks when I didn’t get a paper at all…zero delivery. I understood it when I was an undergrad—hard to get into dorms, or chalk it up to fellow students stealing my paper—but as an adult with an accessible address, there’s no reason you can’t get me a paper when your industry is going down the tubes.

I realize this sounds like the most petty, stupid thing to rant about—just get online and read it all for free, you say—but I really love the smell of the newspaper and the way it leaves newsprint on my hands and even, if I’m reading something while on a treadmill or bike at the gym, don’t mind sweating over it. Once again I started having problems during the summer months when my carrier changed and weather couldn't have been better.  I had a good 4 weeks of spotty service and you better believe I called each day. So, either the Post decided to give all of their full subscribers the Saturday paper contents on Friday because they knew they couldn’t reach us tomorrow, or they did it just for me to make sure I had the Sunday puzzle to work on while snowed in. Either way, I don’t care. I’m stuck inside and I’ve got a huge new crossword to work.

Thank you, Washington Post, I do appreciate it. And now I may even cut you some slack the next time my paper doesn’t come several days in a row…mmm, maybe. I’m still not happy about cutting out the Book World section and no longer offering us even one poem a week in print form (seriously, how much space did that take up to promote something wonderful?), but as long as you get it to me, I will read it.

Here is one of my favorite poems cut out from a newspaper. I’ve got quite a stash of yellowing newsprint of poems alone that either touched me or that I was sent by people who saw a poem and decided to share it. Long live print media.

SNOW: I
by C.K. Williams

All night, snow, then, near dawn, freezing rain, so that by morn-
ing the whole city glistens
in a glaze of high-pitched, meticulously polished brilliance, every-
thing rounded off,
the cars submerged nearly to their windows in the unbroken drifts
lining the narrow alleys,
the buildings rising from the trunklike integuments the wind has
molded against them.
Underlit clouds, blurred, violet bars, the rearguard of the storm,
still hang in the east,
immobile over the flat river basin of the Delaware; beyond them,
nothing, the washed sky,
one vivid wisp of pale smoke rising waveringly but emphatically
into the brilliant ether.
No one is out yet but Catherine, who closes the door behind her
and starts up the street.