In September my subscription to The New Yorker expired. I didn’t renew it.
I’d been a subscriber for more than 25 years, and I felt that a lapsed subscription, due nothing more than a change in credit card number, deserved a call from Calvin Trillin to make sure everything was okay.
No call came. So I let it lapse.
Eight months passed.
Today I opened my mailbox to find the May 4, 2020 issue waiting for me, with a label indicating expiration a year hence.
It was not outside the realm of possibility that I had inadvertently renewed the subscription: I haven’t been 100% myself for some time; who knows what I get up to in my dark midnights.
I called The New Yorker.
I talked to the friendliest person I’ve ever talked to on the phone. Way better than Calvin Trillin.
She looked up my record.
“You’ve received a gift subscription!”, she exclaimed.
“From whom?”, I asked, surprised.
“All it says in the system is ‘a friend’,” she replied.
“Isn’t it nice when that happens: you’ll always be wondering…”, she added.
“Indeed I will,” I chuckled.
We said hearty goodbyes, better-than-Calvin-Trillin clerk and I.
Whoever you may be, friend, þúsund takk.
Comments
Ahhh, how delightful.
I'm a big fan of the magazine but have never subscribed.
Enjoy
What a lovely gift. Did you get the issue with Ben Taub's story about the deep sea exploration? I used my last free article to read it again on my laptop after starting on my phone. It is quite an incredible story.
I am 
You can subscribe to an