A New York Times subscriber with the best intentions realized that there is no fucking way he is going to finish both weekend editions of the newspaper before the next news cycle hits Monday morning.
Unless he is some sort of free-wheeling boomer without family obligations or a Victorian gentleman of leisure, neither of these two papers are getting read in their entirety.
Each morning, both papers are delivered on his doorstep with a thud that would make him think either the foundation of his house is cracking or a small child hopped up on juice from concentrate has crashed into his house on a Razor scooter at full speed.
There are even weeks where he is still reading portions of the Sunday edition when the ensuing Saturday paper is delivered the subsequent weekend.
Don’t let anyone tell him that the paper industry is struggling; there are enough ads for fashion brands he won’t find in normal stores and housing markets he’ll never be able to afford within the newspaper to keep the Times in the black for years to come.
When he signed up for home delivery, he figured the weekend was the best time to cut down on screen time and dedicate himself to reading actual words on paper. Little did he know that due to normal obligations (family, chores, yardwork, only 24 hours in the day), he would be forced to catch up by bringing sections of the newspaper with him everywhere he went deep into the following week.
There are even weeks where he is still reading portions of the Sunday edition when the ensuing Saturday paper is delivered the subsequent weekend.
Now, the end result is the strategic placement of newspaper sections around the house so he can chip away at the paper in between moments of his normal daily life.
It’s kind of a process, but he thinks he’s nailed it down.
“I normally start with one of the thinner sections of low interest, like Business and Sports. I can skim and scan those sections pretty easily because I rarely understand what the writer is even talking about.”
“Then I can dedicate myself to the global and US news sections, which are full of articles about wars, recession, school shootings, and melting icebergs. Pretty heavy stuff, so I can only really dedicate about 20 minutes of my life to it until I am a total nervous wreck or completely suicidal. I can bear no more, so that is the next section to hit the bin.”
“If there is any time left in the morning, I might blaze through the Editorial/Opinions, just more of the same from the News section, but now I have some philosopher or intellectual telling me how I should feel about the latest workplace massacre. I feel like shit about it, thanks, so that’s the next section I finish.”
“Later in the day, I might look at Arts (not Arts & Leisure, that’s different), Metropolitan, or Real Estate. Now that I no longer live in New York, I could hardly give a shit about some playwright I’ve never heard of or some new up and coming neighborhood with all its hipster restaurants and new jewelry stores…”
“Then throughout the week during my lunch break, I have Arts & Leisure (this one is more for plebs: they talk about TV shows and movies), The New York Times Magazine (finishing this thing is a feat unto itself), and the Book Review. There’s also Sunday Styles and Sunday Opinions to contend with. There might also be another giant magazine-looking thing stuck in one of the papers, until you realize it’s just a giant ad for some new museum dedicated to found-folk art or visiting Istanbul.”
He took a breath and rubbed his temples.
“However I decide to finish it, it takes real planning and organization…I didn’t realize I’d have to be so strategic to be informed.”
He paused.
“Maybe there's a subscription where I can just get half a paper every three days?”