Weaning Ourselves Off the News Print

My husband survived another Sunday without the advertising inserts from the Sunday paper. That is his only interest in the Sunday paper, and it was so intense, after I finally let our Sunday-only subscription expire, he went to the 7-11 for three weeks to purchase the paper. I made him buy me a lottery ticket every time he went, so maybe his intense dislike of the lottery finally helped to wean him off the paper.

His argument, and that of others who have posted comments, was we recouped our investment in the Sunday paper by using the food coupons. That's possible, but cutting out and sorting the coupons was becoming as much of a chore as flipping through the Sunday sections looking for articles I was interested in reading -- which was always not many. I was down to reading just one comic, just the fake letters in the Parade section, and maybe an article in the Money section. The want ads were down to three or four pages at best.

News print is dirty, smeared and difficult to read. The size of the newspaper is difficult to handle. Who has a kitchen table these days where they spread out this huge paper, and flip through the pages? Who even has a leisurely Sunday to do that? With the end of blue laws, Sunday is a major shopping day. You can even go to Ukrop's (uh...Martin's) now. I would come back as a subscriber in a second if the Times-Dispatch went to a daily tabloid format, but as many times as I tell them they need to imitate the New York Daily News and the New York Post, they ignore me. Even though we don't have subways except for sandwiches, we are a commuter society and if print survives, it's going to have to be as a more portable format.

But back to those suggestions that the Sunday paper pays for itself through coupons. No, it doesn't. If you are married to a shopaholic, the Sunday paper ad inserts, especially from Best Buy and hhGregg, were temptations to buy things you didn't previously know you wanted. That last Sunday paper he bought actually cost me $375 because a Craftsman rolling on wheels toolbox he wanted was on sale at Sears. It has been two weeks now and there are still no tools in that toolbox, and probably never will be. Maybe a few will go in eventually, but then they'll drift back to the last place they were used, and eventually they will disappear or rust up from being left out in the rain. The toolbox is a promise to get organized that will be broken. I have been through this many times before.

At least the Sunday paper will no longer be a guilty party in this.