An Easter Ode to Catholic Guilt and the Washington Post

As you all know, I kind of love the Washington Post. But I kind of hate its ridiculously short billing periods/generally confusing payment structure. For example, my online account currently says that my account is paid through 11/28/2008, thanks to the payment that I made on 3/19/2009. And that I have a past-due amount of $20.03, and if I pay that, my subscription will be extended until 9/21/2009. Really? Only 20 bucks to have the paper from April to September? What a steal! But where did the payment I JUST MADE go?

The only reason I subscribe to the stupid print version is because I feel guilty about the impending death of print media. I'm a writer, so I feel the need to do the best I can to slow print's demise. Even though I usually end up recycling my paper and reading it online anyway. And even though I absolutely hate the feel of newsprint and the marks it leaves on my fingers (my skin crawls thinking about it).

Of course I also subscribe because you have to call a person to cancel, and my guilt prevents me from doing that. So I tried to just stop paying, but as you can see, that's not really working out for me.

Oh, and I had this journalism teacher who used to make us read the Post everyday, but he would always complain about what a shit paper it was. But that was before Date Lab.