Free Newspaper

I walk into my favourite cafe this morning and am greeted by a chorus of
"Morning Jemima!"s. I sit down, my latte arrives, and I start feeling all
warm and fuzzy. Definitely a nice start to the day.

There is only one problem with my favourite cafe, and that is they only ever
have one copy of the newspaper. Needless to say, someone else is always
reading it when I come in. I look around unobtrusively to see who has my
newspaper, in order that I may swipe it as soon as they are finished. (I
once suggested that someone should share the paper with me, but it didn't
end very well. Now I just try to be patient.) In fact, there are normally a
myriad of other bwankers also waiting for the paper, so we circle like hawks (but pretend we're not) waiting for the current reader to finish, ready to snap it up like a bum who spies a cigarette in the gutter with a drag left
on it.

I spy the culprit with the newspaper and cunningly sit down nearby. Simon,
the waiter, asks if I would like toast, and apologises that he is out of my
favourite juice. I am nonplussed and complain jokingly to the patron next to
me (incidentally, also reading a newspaper, but not the one that I like to
read; I mentally cross him off my list of competitors) about the lax
standards of the cafe. I add to the list of complaints the fact that there
is always only ever one newspaper, and lo and behold...

"Oh, do you want a newspaper? I have one right here, and I've already read it. Do you want it?"

And so, added to the warm fuzzy greetings, is a free newspaper. I even got
the crossword out (although admittedly, it is Thursday.) With all
these good vibes, there is just no excuse for it not to be a good day,
today. So please, please, no one come and fuck it up, k?