Monday Magazine Mania: The Beginning

Twenty years have gone by, yet I remember it perfectly.  I was with Mom at our local grocery store, Felpausch.  While she perused the greeting cards, I wandered over one aisle, to the magazine row, just out of boredom.  I didn't actually care about any of the publications.  But then I picked up Teen magazine.  I was 13, and -pow! - here was my holy grail.  

I didn't know how to dress, what to do with my hair, or how to talk to boys.  And here was a manual explaining how to do all those things!  I begged Mom to buy it for me, and she said yes!  Once at home, I studied every word, every page.  And then a subscription card fluttered out.  Soon, I was handing over $12 of my babysitting money to Dad, and in return, he gave me a check made out to Teen magazine.  Thus began one of my longest, and most wonderful relationships.  
I kept every issue in mint condition.  I saved them, and referred back to old issues regularly.  Nearly two decades later, I'm still mad at my then-best friend for borrowing my first-ever Teen -- and then CUTTING IT UP for a scrapbook.  You don't burn someone else's Koran... and you sure as heck don't cut up her "Bible!"  But I digress...
I subscribed to Teen for years, but I wasn't always monogamous.  After a couple years, I met Sassy*, and began a several-year-long lovefest.  There was also a fling with Seventeen.  And then, the mother lode.  A family friend known as Grandma Jan had a thick stack of fashion magazines she no longer needed.  Did I want them?  And that was how, in one day, I met the dear friends of my distant, grown-up future: Elle, Bazaar and Vogue.  I'm sure Grandma Jan never knew her pile of old magazines was one of the most cherished gifts I ever received.  
In college, I majored in journalism, expecting that Anna Wintour would someday move on from Vogue, leaving the Editor-in-Chief position to, of course, me.  But then I changed my focus to broadcast, rather than print, journalism.  (And, also, Anna Wintour never moved on from Vogue.)  So instead of editing Vogue, I grew up to be a Talk Show Hopeful and an admitted magazine junkie.
Signs that I'm an addict include problems like this:  When I first spotted In Style on the newsstand (featuring Demi Moore in curlers) in 1996, I fell in love.  But I've never been able to subscribe, because I fear I might miss an issue while I wait for the subscription to kick in.  So I just keep buying it at the bookstore... month after month after month, for fifteen years!  Also, I never, ever open up a perfume sample, because that, to my warped mind, would damage the integrity of the magazine.  And don't even get me started on my thoughts about using magazines for scrapbooking purposes!**

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*The Bloggess shared a recent interaction she had with the editor of Sassy.  Her story is hilarious- read it immediately.  Compared to The Blogess, I'm completely useless at this internet thing.  Sigh.

**Although, I must admit, if I feel the need to send hate mail to my nemesis Bill Schulz, I will send a creepy letter composed of cut-up magazine letters.  But I DON'T cut up a gorgeous monthly magazine for the job -- I use a less-valuable-to-me weekly magazine (apologies, In Touch Weekly editors).