I got an invitation in the mail the other day offering me an annual subscription to National Geographic for $12. It’s a special “Welcome Back” deal.
Well, if the Society really found me on its “former member” list, they were looking back about 40 years. I don’t think I’ve gotten the magazine regularly in at least that long. I stopped re-upping for the usual reason: the magazines are too beautiful to throw away so they pile up on shelves or coffee tables, and no library in the state needs them as everyone who does try to get rid of them thinks of the library as the first alternative when deciding who to give them to.
Anyway, I’m tempted. But if I do sign up, it means I won’t need to read them at the dentist’s office because I’ll have already gotten the issues that turn up there. So I’ll have to read People magazine or Golf Digest. I’m too much of a snob to want to be seen reading celebrity gossip and I don’t care about golf. Why can’t one of the dentists (it’s a multi-practitioner office) be an avid sailor? I’d love to look at Sail magazine without paying for it (although it’s got a current one-year subscription rate that’s the same as NatGeo — $12. Hmmm.).
What to do, what to do?
Why not donate a subscription to your dentist?
One waiting room I go to has a swap library book shelf. You know, the leave one take one system. I’ve seen some good stuff there actually. But it’s never occurred to me to start reading a book in a waiting room. And as it happens, unlike many offices these days, I never seem to be in that waiting room very long anyhow.
Juli, that’s a thought.
Ms. Punch, books seem like a pessimistic solution (“You’ll be here a long time, Bubba!”). 😉