Redbook and Cosmo

A while back I was ruining the six-foot strip of grass in front of our house with my rotary push mower, when a young guy selling magazine subscriptions came down the sidewalk. There's nothing worse than being caught out in the open with a rotary mower, especially by a dude with a clipboard. But he was sharp and funny, his pitch mainly about tuition fees and some relatively plausible charity, so we joked around while I wrote him a $26 check for a subscription to Mother Jones I didn't want. Of course, the magazine never came. Six months later another guy knocks on my door, this one older and not nearly as charming. I told him I wasn't falling for that routine again, but instead of arguing he looked like he was about to cry, so I gave him ten bucks for the effort. Last night yet another guy came to my door, this time with a big diamond earring in each lobe, and even though I'd vowed I would never get subscription-scammed again, as soon as he told me his name was "Fabrice", while standing there wearing a jaunty purple beret in the pouring rain, I knew I was doomed. Turns out a subscription to the New Yorker that I will never receive goes for $34. Fabrice also got a juice box and a string cheese my daughter left by her backpack. He was casually checking them out. "You thirsty?" I said. "It's possible," he said. "Later, Fabrice," I said. "Later, baby," he said, creasing my check neatly down the middle and sliding it with the cheese into his back pocket.