Dear Diary: Put your goddamn newspaper away

When I go out to someone else’s house or out in public and read a newspaper. I put it back when I leave… apparently this is not actually general practice!

I will now cover the basic steps of public newspaper reading.

1. Take your newspaper, take it to your table and separate out the sections. ie the comics, travel section, tv magazine etc.

2.Cover your table with it and the seats next to you so people who want to sit at the next table on the couch need to awkwardly manoeuvre around your papers.

3. When the waiter/waitress comes over with your coffee or food, don’t move! Better yet turn the page as they try to put things down. If they attempt to place something on top of the newspaper, sigh loudly.

4. When you have finished and are ready to leave, close the paper but make sure you don’t quite fold it along the proper crease. There should be a few pages that stick out at the top and sides.

5. Do not and I repeat loudly DO NOT put any of the sections you took out of the paper back in. Just leave them strewn around your table (unless it’s The Australian see point 6). Or, put one section back on the rack…so when a waiter tries to put the paper back together they won’t be able to find that section If you are sitting outside, do not put anything on top of the paper that will prevent pages from blowing away. Paper must be free to fly away.

6. If your paper of choice is The Australian then it is imperative that you fold some sections backwards. Better yet, take the sports section. Hide the cover page somewhere, then fold the two remaining sections backwards and inside out. Don’t leave the paper in different sections all over your table as described in section 5.. Get all of them (apart from the hidden sports cover), stack them completely out of order (front cover must NOT be in front), then fold them over and leave on the table. This way, the lucky staff member to find it will have to unfold everything, search through all the sections for the cover, then organise the rest of the paper.

7. Get up from your table and wave good bye to waitstaff, once you are out of their sight, LOL your arse off.

Hope this helps!

Love Carrie xoxo xxxx