Things Ain’t Like They Was Twenty Years Ago!

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 23854 – 1293

Dear Fan Base and Base Fans,

Here’s the Haps:

Twenty years ago I wrote a post called More Alien News about a journalistic wonder of the newsstands, The Weekly World News. In 2005 the Internet was just beginning to thrive. Online shopping was in its infancy and deliveries from the store were not really a thing. Especially not like they have it nowadays with Door Dash, Uber Eats, Instacart, etc., where you just make a few clicks on a few pictures and in a very short time you have exactly what you want at your doorstep. To be fair, just before my time, you could call your corner grocery store and the owner would have “a lad” or “the boy” bring your order to your house. I guess it’s true, at least in some ways, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Anyway, in the late Nineties and early Two Thousands, we still went to the store as a family. Standing in the checkout, much to the dismay and chagrin of my wife (not to mention eye-rolling), I would read out the headlines. “Look, kids, a police officer in Iowa shot a two-headed bigfoot! Look! There’s pictures and everything!”
“Daddy, that’s not real.”
“Duck Hunters Accidentally Shoot Angel!”
“It’s printed right there in black and white. It has to be true or they couldn’t print it.”
“Daddy, you always tell us that you can’t believe everything you read.”
“But what about the pictures?”
“There are pictures of monsters in storybooks, too.”
It became kind of a game we would play, and usually the other folks in line would get a kick out of it. Except for one time when I hadn’t noticed the lady checking out in front of us had the very same tabloid in her cart. She gave me a dirty look and I just said, “Oops.” I had never actually seen anyone buy one of those before. I tried a couple of times, but my wife was very clear that we would not waste good money to have that kind of stuff in the house.

Nowadays, the Weekly World News has a website because of course it does. But it’s just not the same. I mean the stories are the same reliable journalistic marvels that they always were but now the Internet abounds in so much more competition.

But she should have let me buy some. I found this gem (No, sorry, I still didn’t buy it) on eBay for $12.99: