intertwingly

In 1982, I lived in an apartment.  This was before mass public access to the Internet, so the primary way to keep up with the world while at home was via television and newspaper.

At this point, the Washington Star had folded, and the Washington Times wasn't quite yet established.  The Washington Post was pretty much the only game in town for newspapers.

I lived on the top floor and the end of a row of apartments and a far corner of the complex.  This meant that I was the last paper in the paper boy's route.  I know this because he seemed to often come up short, and would simply quit when he ran out.

This resulted in my registering of frequent complaints of missed papers.  Eventually, a new paper boy took over the route and things got better.  I suspect that he was told that if he had to skip any deliveries, it had better not be mine.  Either that, or he knew how to count.

After a while, I started missing papers again.  So I resumed calling again, and this time they adamantly assured me that they had delivered the papers.  They suggested that somebody must have been helping themselves to the paper.  This seemed unlikely as one would have had to walk up four flights of stairs, and past a number of other newspapers to get to mine.  Or to be one of the three neighbors on my floor.

One day I decided to find out.  Instead of going directly into the shower when I woke up, I camped by the door.  When I heard the thud of the newspaper on the floor, I moved into action.  I opened the door, took the newspaper inside and immediately removed the front page.

I then inserted the front page around the front section a copy of the previous day's newspaper that I had specially prepared.  I had not read that copy so it was in pristine condition.  I had removed the front page from that copy and one of the internal sections.  In its place I had inserted a liberal amount of flour.

Flour is a wonderful substance.  It is relatively cheap and easy to obtain.  It doesn't stain, and washes out easily.

It is also virtually impossible to simply brush out of clothing.

I reassembled the newspaper and placed it outside the door and went off to take my shower.  After I finished and got dressed, I checked outside the door.  Sure enough, the newspaper was gone.  In its place was a trail of white powder down the steps, past other newspapers to the bottom landing, around a corner and out into the parking lot.  At that point, the trail mysteriously disappeared.

My newspaper delivery was pretty much reliable from then on.