Some Things Last Forever - July, 2007

Forget relationships. I’ll tell you what will last forever – and then some. Take, for example, magazines.

A few weeks ago my favorite sister got a call from TV Guide about renewing her subscription.

“But my current subscription expires in 2009,” she explained.

“Suppose I give you the senior citizen’s discount to extend your subscription?” the sly rep offered.

She fell for it, for once happy to have crossed the mid-century mark to read TV Guide for less money than the average 49-year old. By the time the subscription to TV Guide runs out, she will have passed it to her heirs. In fact, she’s still getting the Jewish newspaper, The Speaker, to which my mother subscribed, and she died 18 years ago.

I have a feeling that our subscriptions and other things around us will outlive us. I have subscribed to the Star-Ledger literally since the last century. Whenever I call to stop delivery because I’ll be out of town, they extend the subscription (and usually deliver the paper anyway) – or so they say. When I call to complain that the newspaper wasn’t delivered that day, I’m told they will extend my subscription. I have this vision of newspapers littering the driveway long after I have moved from my current home, or, worse yet, piling up at my final resting place, where, hopefully, they will turn to compost and keep the grass on my grave green and healthier than the occupant just below.

I am so far behind in Newsweek that I just read the one that said George Bush is running for a second term. Yet I can’t throw them out, because I might miss some important news, even if it isn’t quite as newsworthy when I finally read it. By the time I read Consumer Reports, the models of cameras, refrigerators and vacuums they have reviewed have already been replaced by better, cheaper and newer models. But I can’t throw them out. I stopped my subscription to Vanity Fair after copies piled up for 18 months and I didn’t have a two-week block of time available to read them. I can’t tell you how disappointed the numerous representatives were who called me to urge me to continue my subscription. I’ll get the preferred rate, they said, or the professional rate (as what, a professional magazine subscriber? It’s not like I have a waiting room in my house, though with all those old magazines, sometimes it does resemble my doctor’s office.). Finally, I explained that I was no longer “allowed” to get a magazine I didn’t read. They stopped calling, concerned that someone actually had magazine rules. I took the 18-month pile and put it out with my recycling. Don’t tell me I can donate them to a nursing home or senior citizens center, because when I am living in those places, I’ll still have my own magazines to read.

And then there are the hangers. I’ve been busy donating clothing to various charities as I pare down my wardrobe to get rid of the clothes I no longer wear because I don’t work, they are out of style, didn’t fit when I bought them and won’t fit now, or they are enormously shoulder-padded suits I wouldn’t be caught dead in even if I could fit into them again. I’ve been donating the hangers back to my dry cleaner (enough to keep them in business for months), but yet I no sooner take a batch out of the house when I find more. I think they propagate when I’m not around, and I’m certain the proliferation of hangers will continue long after I have checked out. (By the way, the one person who has not as yet gotten over my retirement is my dry cleaner. She keeps asking me if I am going back to work, as she sees her gross proceeds take a serious dip.)

Take paper clips. Once they are out of the box, they are everywhere. I promise you, buy one box and you will have enough clips to last for a lifetime, especially if you clean out files and remove them from your papers. Once they experience that taste of freedom, they start to venture further. I found one recently in my jewelry drawer. Did I confuse it with a pair of earrings? Did I think it was worth insuring? How – and why – did it get there?

All I know is that long after I am gone, my newspaper will continue to arrive each day, someone will find my Newsweek magazine in his or her mailbox, and my family will wonder: What’s with this weird collector of hangers and paper clips?

Footnote:
Last month we ruminated over “Signs of the Times.” Since then I found another sign worthy of inclusion in the discussion. While driving on I-95 in Maryland I spotted an electric sign urging people with problems to call a toll-free talk line. To what kind of problem do you think they were referring? It appeared not to be vehicle-related, judging by the nature of the wording. If you had a problem of a personal nature, would you take to the highway to find help? And finally, with a speed limit of 65 MPH, wouldn’t jotting down that phone number while barreling down the highway cause a truckload of other problems? Just wondering.