Pitiful Tedium At The Daily Planet

Today on the masthead they had the day wrong, but the date right, and nobody noticed until about 500 copies were out the door.

"Monday, January 10, 2007" it read.

I got all excited. Like I wanted a copy as a collecters item, like someone in the future would find that amusing.

"Monday the 10th? In 2007? Wow, what a find, no wonder you framed it."

Told one of the old press men, and he had me repeat myself. I was still excited. I imagined that all our executives were joining a special work crew to go out into the city to grab the papers all back up before the citizenry realized their mistake.

The old fellow looked at me and seemed to be waiting for the Rest Of The Story. Then he muttered something unintelligible about the time, probably that it was molasses, and returned to his retirement by what we call the Poor Richard.

You think something exciting is going to happen when you work for the newspaper but nothing ever does. Of course I don't read the damn thing, it's just abbreviated A.P. articles and local hoo-hah.

Never any "stop the presses!" ....well, until today I guess, but I missed that, damn the luck.

I went back to my big cardboard box where the returns go. I didn't have anything to do, had finished the Times and wasn't ready to enjoy another smoke. So I just leaned there, as if I were the guardian of the recyclable paper, and gazed into the warehouse of towering paper cylanders. I imagined I looked like a disappointed pup, and harumphed and went out for a cigarette anyway.