The Subscriber’s Revenge
A reader cancels a decade-long subscription after the editor has the audacity to send a bill.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
I’ve stopped the paper, yes I have, I didn’t like to do it, but the editor he got too smart, and I allow he’ll rue it. I’m a man who pays his debts, and will not be insulted, so when the editor gets smart I want to be consulted. I took the paper 'leven years and helped him all I could, sir, but when it come to dunnin’ me I didn’t think he would sir. But that he did, and you can bet it made me hot as thunder; I says, 'I'll stop that sheet, I will if the doggone thing goes under.' I hunted up the editor and for his cunnin’ caper I paid him 'leven years and quit! Yes, sir, I stopped the paper.
“I’m a man who pays his debts, and will not be insulted, so when the editor gets smart I want to be consulted.”
This humorous poem captures the timeless tension between local media and their subscribers. While we rarely have to deal with physical debt-dunning in the modern digital age, the 'cancel culture' of small-town newspapers remains a classic civic ritual.
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