3 Month Trial Run
Today I went to the grocery store to buy some milk.
That's it, just milk.
I don't go to grocery stores hardly ever. Chup always goes, it's his Me Time. I take my Me Time in the tub. Look, this is getting personal.
So, I went walking into the grocery store and there was a man at a booth. On the table in front of him were stacks of newspaper and he greeted me with, "Hello! Do you take the paper?" and as he was asking this he was handing me a copy of the Deseret News labeled FREE.
Like a flash in my brain, I thought about only hours before when my editor at the Deseret News Aaron Shill asked me if I was going to buy the paper tomorrow when my first column appears.
I said, "Of course." And then I had this vision of me buying a paper out of one of those canisters outside of Denny's.
So back at the grocery store, I stopped abruptly in my tracks, "Are you selling subscriptions to the newspaper?" I asked.
"Yes I am," he replied--a tall, good-looking man with dark hair and roundish glasses.
On the other side of the booth was a white-haired woman, sixty-ish writing out a check on top of newsprint piles.
"You know what? I am writing a column for the Deseret News and my column is starting tomorrow," I said like I was announcing my first grade Thanksgiving play. "And I don't actually get the paper, so maybe I should start."
"Well, yes," said the lady writing the check. And then she stopped, gave me a look over and mouthed the words "I READ THE NEWSPAPER!"
"Your own column!" the Newspaper Man interrupted, "Politics? Current Events? What's your angle?"
"Well, just me, really." I said. Then I started thinking, do I need an angle?
But that anxiety didn't fester because just then the lady paused from her check-writing to stare at me in the eyes and say, "Well I have a question for you. England keeps putting oil in our oceans here. And also, the pharmaceuticals there are corrupt and it's corrupting us. It terrifying. [Pause. Long, awkward pause.] And that is my question."
Then she ripped the check out of her check book and handed it over to the Newspaper Man with frustration and finality. As he was looking it over she looked back at me--up and down again--and smiled.
"Orson Scott Card was my neighbor once. Backyard."
Then she turned around and left the building.
I bought a gallon of milk and a three month subscription to the paper (let's hope I make it that long).
You can read my first column here!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
C. Jane's Guide to Provo:
Find out how you can contribute to the Des News.
Lunch with Chris Clark auction is underway $45.
Dear C. Jane
I spill the (refried) beans about what I want to write about in this new column.
I am C. Jane Kendrick and I now "take the paper." You can contact me personally at cjanemail @ gmail.com or leave comments on my facebook page and if you are on twitter you can find my tweets here. But no pressure.