Missing Parts

I'm not one of those people who faithfully reads the newspaper. Many years ago, I had a job at MCG that required me to read all local and National newspapers daily. My entire day was spent reading up on current events, looking for news regarding large corporations and millionaires who might be interested in spending their millions on MCG. I got a little burned out on News.

We don't even subscribe. My parents do and send us down the Sunday paper once they're finished. Don clips the coupons and I glance over the sales inserts. Once in a while, he'll find something that he thinks would be of interest to me and cuts it out. My father, also, sends down articles with asterisks for me to peruse. But, typically, I read the Parade (or whatever version our hometown newspaper is currently distributing), especially the inside front cover which Don likes to call the "Gossip Report" and the Sunday comics.

Don is very meticulous about saving those two parts for me each week and putting them at my place at the kitchen table. I, in turn, am pretty meticulous about reading them. Sometimes I have to wrestle the funnies from Deanna, but I almost always get them read (my educational reading material!)

Last night, Don had been separating out the parts of the Sunday paper which my father had sent down via one of the children. He was sitting on the loveseat in the dining room and began clipping coupons once the news was separated. There, in the middle of the coupons and scissors, was the Magazine that I always read.

He ran off to the store and I worked on taping matching gift tags into the underside of Christmas-decorated boxes before storing them until next year. I had them all sorted by size and shape and was about half done when Don returned with groceries for me to unload.

We met in the dining room, about even with the loveseat, when Don gasped.

"What, honey?" I prodded. "What's wrong?"

He pointed, silently, at the front cover of the Magazine. A circular hole met my glance, covering almost the entire cover.

Don quickly flipped the page. So much for my "Gossip Report". Gone. Cut away with the front cover.

"WHO could have DONE this?" I asked, incredulous. The most important part of the paper, destroyed!

I leaned over to look at the front cover and noticed two little words on the bottom of the remaining part. It said, simply, "Jonas Brothers".

I held the words up for Don to see. This morning, the culprit returned the picture of the Jonas' so I could read my part, silly grin on his/her beautiful little face (as if you didn't know!).

"Sorry, Mom!"

Of course Don and I understood. After all, my Gossip Column can't compete with teenage hormones and the Jonas Brothers.