As I resume my morning commute after a 1-year hiatus from the work force, I have gotten back into the habit of reading those free newspapers that are at every transit junction (and everywhere in between it seems). For the most part they are annoying, trashy, full of grammatical errors, etc. But I do enjoy the daily crossword.

Anyway, as I was reading one the other day I was reminded of something from my childhood. Back in the day when we got the newspaper delivered to our house, I clearly remember perusing the pages and realizing that my grandmother had gotten a hold of it first. You see, sometimes out of boredom or amusement (I guess) she would often take a pen to the black and white newsprint photos and add black eyes, missing teeth, smoldering cigars, devil horns and the like (but no pornographic images – oh, could you imagine?).

I was on the skytrain and laughed out loud as I remembered this memory. Then I realized that’s what’s missing from these daily commuter newspapers that I read. I need to whip out a pen and channel my dear grandmother. Yes, that would make the ride to work more interesting for sure….