Here’s what I know: If I go to my local newsstand and take a copy of the newspaper without paying for it, that would be stealing, and stealing is wrong.
But here’s what I also know: If I subscribe to home delivery of a national daily newspaper and that paper is delivered every morning — every morning — to a different, hard-to-locate patch of asphalt nearly 100 yards away from my front door, then the only way to get a resolution to this problem is to go to the newspaper’s customer service webpage, lodge a complaint about a “missing paper,” and demand a credit on my subscription. I have done this every day for several weeks.
Yes, of course, I do eventually locate the paper. But I’ve discovered that the only reliable way to get any action on any customer dissatisfaction is to withhold payment. And while that is technically “stealing,” if you’re a stickler about these things, it’s part of a larger strategy for justice. So I give myself a pass.
It doesn’t help the newspaper’s case that every interaction permitted on the site is through an infuriating chatbot, which reminds me daily that it is very sorry for my inconvenience and wants to ensure that this problem is resolved quickly. (It hasn’t been.)
“What’s the big deal?” a friend asked me when I complained about this. “So you have to walk a bit to get the paper. Seems like a small thing to get so furious about.”
I listed the many ways this kind of thinking, in which we all put up with small indignities and bad service until we’re a nation in decline (or a nation that’s even more decline-ier), is wrong and suggested that my form of rebellion was properly using the levers of free-market capitalism, which is the very best kind of capitalism, to get satisfaction. And then I added that I was also using this experience as what some people call a “teachable moment” because whoever delivers the paper now knows that details matter, and this will be a lesson that will surely have a positive effect on that person’s life. And then I apologized for using the phrase “teachable moment” because I know it’s annoying and pompous.
I also mentioned that it’s been getting very chilly lately, and a five-minute search for a newspaper at seven in the (frigid) morning isn’t a great way to start the day.
“I’m sorry, when?” my friend asked.
“You know,” I said. “In the morning.”
“You said ‘seven.’ Do you actually get up at seven?”
My friend knows me well enough to know that I often work late — less these days now that I have morning classes, but occasionally — and that even when I don’t, I’m a slow-riser. His point was that when I actually go out to get the paper, it’s probably closer to 8:30 a.m. or even 9 a.m., at which time the sun is up and most people are busily marching into their day.
I insisted he was wrong and moved to change the subject. But, honestly, he was on to something. The truth is, I’ve always been a little ashamed of my late-sleeping habits. Instagram influencers, neuroscientists, self-help gurus — and these groups often overlap, unfortunately — nearly all agree that mornings are for up-and-at-’em, tackle the day, hard stuff first, etc. When the morning paper is delivered to a remote location, it sits there for hours broadcasting to my neighbors that I’m still asleep, that I’m lazy, indolent, and good-for-nothing. This impression is amplified when I finally head out to collect the paper in some ragged combination of a T-shirt, shorts or sweatpants, old shoes, and a rat’s nest of hair. Look at that bum, I can hear them say. It’s nearly nine AM!
Of course, they’re not saying that. It’s an often-forgotten rule of the universe that no one is ever paying as much attention to you as you think they are. Mostly, in fact, they don’t even notice you. But I make a much smaller target of my neighbors’ admittedly imaginary disdain when all I have to do is dart out to my front steps and dart back inside. In the summertime, I could even do it in my underwear. I mean, I won’t (probably), but I could, as long as the newspaper is delivered to the right spot. And until that moment, I will continue to teach the newspaper and its delivery service a lesson about free-market capitalism and steal the newspaper daily. If I have to humiliate myself in front of my neighbors, I shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.
