The Paper Thief

I let my neighbor steal my morning paper. I see her from my office, every morning walking her ugly pug. She shuffles passed my driveway twice before she bends and scoops up the daily news. Sometimes I swear she looks straight at me and smiles. But I'm never sure and I always chalk it up to imagination or lack of sleep.

Maybe I do it because of the image emblazoned in my head of a teachers aide I had in elementary school. A boy in class called her an old useless hag and the look on her face just about killed my not yet tainted heart. Maybe I do it to prove to myself that I am not completely heartless, that my tendency to be an ass is all an act. For whatever reason, I keep paying the bill and never say a word.

So when the day began and she had not yet passed, I worried. By nine I could take no more and walked next door. She answered the door, still in her nightgown, holding a newspaper. Shocked by the site of the newspaper (but happy she was okay) I quickly asked if she needed anything while I was out. She smiled and said "no. but thank you...for everything".

Picking up the newspaper in my driveway, the first time I'd done so in a year, I wondered why she had decided to get her own now. Later, as I was telling the Warden, a smile came to his face. "She got it then, good". It turns out he had ordered the newspaper for her. He said it seemed like she and the dog had been slowing down lately and he thought it would be easier to have one delivered directly to her.

I looked at him, so oblivious to the wonderful thing he did, so unaware of how his small act made a stranger happy. And in that moment I felt nothing but enormous love. As I wrapped my arms around him, he bent down and whispered in my ear, "Do I get some extra ass shakin' for this"?

Warden: Fabulous husband, amazing father, wonderful man. Forever horny.