Read This
Reading The Paper
By: Ron Carlson
All I want to do is read the paper, but I've got to do the wash first. There's blood all over everything. Duke and the rest of the family except me and Timmy were killed last night by a drunk driver, run over in a movie line, and this blood is not easy to get out. Most of the fabrics are easy to clean, however, so I don't even bother reading the fine print on the Cheer box. They make this soap work in all conditions anymore. Then I get Timmy up and ready for school. He eats two Hostess doughnuts and before he's even down the street and I've picked up the paper, I can hear him screaming down there. Somebody's dragging him into a late model Datsun, light brown, the kind of truck Duke, bless his soul, always thought was silly. So, I've got the paper in my hands and there's someone at the door. So few people come to the back door that I know it's going to be something odd, and I'm right. It's that guy in the paper who escaped from the prison yesterday. He wants to know if he can come in and rape me and cut me up a little bit. Well, after he does that, my coffee's cold, so I pour a new cup and am about to sit down when I see Douglas, my brother from Dill, drive in the driveway in his blue Scout, so I pour two cups. Douglas looks a little more blue this morning than a week ago. He started turning blue about a year before they found the bricks in his house were made out of Class Ten caustic poison or something. He's built a nice add-on or he and Irene, bless her soul, would have moved. But at least this morning he's wearing an extra John Deere hat on the growth on his shoulder, so that's an improvement. He says he's heard about Duke and the three girls and he asks me, "What were you all going to see?" I can barely hear him because I see two greasers backing Duke's new T-bird out the sidelawn. If they're not careful, they're going to hit the mailbox. They miss it and pull away; that car always was the prettiest turquoise in the world. I stir a little more Cremora into my coffee and turn to my blue brother. His left eye is a little worse, bulging more and glowing more often these days. You know, as much as I stir and stir this Cremora, there's always a little left floating on the top.
He's making the point that our modern day media is filled with sensational news, in order to gain viewer attention, and market products to them.
What do you guys think hes trying to say?
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