The London Paper came back to haunt me.

I'm a hypocrite. At least in this one instance.

I made sort of a big deal this summer about not picking up the free London papers. I wanted "'quality' news" and didn't want to waste my time on rags like The London Paper and London Lite. So, I ignored and brushed off the vendors who "flip(ped) the paper a few times frying-pan style" and tried to push their papers into my hands.

Last Friday, the IDS had its first Slash meeting of the year. In these meetings, we talk about how the week's paper and Web site were and what we're planning to do the next week. A lot of it (sometimes most of it, depending on how the week went) involves critiquing the mistakes we made, like a poorly-worded headline, or a bad layout, or using an Oxford comma.

During the meeting, the marketing department passed around a clipboard for people to sign up for paper distribution. For a free shirt, one could stand in the Arboretum, by the Sample Gates or elsewhere around campus and give papers to people passing by. I found an open slot in my Monday schedule, took a pile of papers from the backshop, walked to the Arboretum, and passed out issues of the paper to students.

After about the ninth person who gave a short wave and a polite, "No thanks," I realized what I was doing. Here I was, the guy who looked away as vendors offered me The London Paper, getting the brush-off as I try to give away free newspapers.

Karma.