…here in the office, only much funnier.
Tuesday’s where I work are high pressure. That is in a good way, of course. Because we are growing closer and closer to the deadline when pages have to be sent to the press for the weekly newspaper. If that means we have to stick around until 9 at night, then that’ what we do. I’ve done that before, and let me tell you, it is tiring.
Often when we’re in set up mode, we come up with interesting, albeit by accident, funny moments. One such funny moment came while I was typing up the local news. I should explain, by local news I mean the community news. Specific to small towns in the area. Much like the Globe and Mail having a few pages dedicated to The Prairies, our news paper has a few column inches dedicated to, oh say, Conquest. Yes, that’s the name of a small village. On this particular day, I was typing away what the “correspondent” had sent in. Not all those who write the local community news have access or the know how to operate a computer. Yes, the population of our readership is aging. But I digress…
A lot of times when I’m typing, my fingers fly faster than what I try to get out in my head. It’s worse when I’m typing someone else’s written words. Thank goodness for lessons in cursive writing in school so I can read their writing. However, on this day I became aware just how close the “I” and the “O” keys are on the keyboard, and a simple slip can make a sweet, innocent word become rather vulgar. Possible. That was the word. Good thing I proof read, otherwise “pissable” would have made it into the paper. And the way things go, readers remember your screw ups much more than the awesome things you did.
The other humourous thing today came in the form of a conversation. Between all three of us in the office… yes, it’s a small office… we were discussing what should go on the front page. Our publisher started off with…
“We need a photo for the front page.”
“What about from the rodeo?” asked our reporter.
PUB: “Yeah, get that picture with the guy on the horse.”
ME: “That narrows it down.”
All in all, just another day in our little newspaper office.
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