A Sophisticate Eats Library Paste

What’s on my mind? Unread magazines.

Tossing them is kinda like putting down the dog. I know it’s necessary, but want no part of it; don’t want to see it; don’t want to hear the details.

Several years ago, a family member gave me a 1,000-year subscription to Gourmet and Bon Appétit magazines. I’m hardly a gourmet (at a younger age, my choix de cuisine was library paste), but I like to eat.

The magazines were a welcome gift. Each month, when they arrived, I marked the recipes I intended to make. 

Someday. 

I soon stopped marking recipes. Or even opening the magazines. I was going to “sa-a-ve” reading them as a special treat for when I had “ti-i-me.”

Over the years, the pile grew taller than Mt. Everest. When I struck out for a trip to Arizona, I brought the magazines. The plan: Read every one, clip the recipes likeliest to win friends and influence people, and host amazing dinner parties.

It never happened. When I returned home, my friend Hezzah peered into the peanut-sized trunk of my peanut-sized car to say: “This is ridiculous!” She then chucked every magazine into a gigantic recycling bin while I averted my eyes and pretended it wasn’t happening.

Several years ago, with best intentions and the knowledge that New York is one of my favorite cities, Himself gave me a subscription to The New Yorker. When we invited the neighbors over, I’d spread them (the magazines, not the neighbors) on the coffee table. This meant that every idiot (sorry, Mr. Harris; sorry, Mrs. H) would see them. They (my collection of New Yorkers, not the H’s) made me feel ... well,  sophisticated.

The New Yorker is Gourmet and Bon Appétit on steroids. The pile of New Yorkers grew higher and broader, teetering dangerously in the closet as this sophisticate selected her sweatshirt and jeans du jour.

One day, Himself said: “I’m going to recycle those %$#@! magazines!” It was an empty threat. Himself knew I’d divorce him - better yet, murder him - if he did.

“No-o-nooo!” I cried. “I’m going to re-e-ead them!” True to my promise, I read one New Yorker cover-to-cover, devouring every page. The rest conspired to procreate in the closet, the stack taller every year.

(Himself knows all about best intentions and unread magazines. He once had a subscription to National Geographic - say n’ more, say n’ more).

This morning, as I carried a piffle of paper out to the recycling bin, I saw a pile of New Yorker magazines - my New Yorker magazines - hidden under the local newspaper and the weekly grocery flyers.

I briefly morphed into the Incredible Hulk before deliberately looking away. I knew tossing the New Yorker had to be done, but could never do it myself.

They say revenge is best eaten cold. Himself had no idea I was aware of what he’d done.

Sauntering into the kitchen, all bright and sunny (me, not the kitchen, which desperately needs remodeling), I said: “Sweetheart ... I think I’ll pull some of those New Yorkers from the bedroom closet and read them today! I’ve been so-o-o looking forward to it! I’ll get them from the closet right away!”

I heard Himself suck wind. And then I laughed.

“I saw what you did! I could never have done it, myself. It needed to be done. Thank you!”

And then we gave one another a big hug. And a long, smoochy kiss. And I peeled off my sweatshirt. Say n’ more, say n’ more.

©  Nicole Parton, 2020