"I Just Read the Misquotes File ...

And I'd Like to Say I've Been Misquoted"

While I was going through my clips yesterday I found a print-out of the "misquotes" file we used to keep at one of the papers I worked for. It's full of funny quotes from members of our pod, which included three reporters and the editor of a regional edition of the paper, the two-person business desk, the education section editor, the paper's columnist, a regular stringer and the film critic, who didn't sit with us but wandered over often from his own nearby pod.

In one of my favorite exchanges, the columnist asks the film critic if he ever shops at Miltons.

"Yeah, ever since I lost my clothes in the plane crash," the film critic says.

"Hey, you were on that DC-10?" someone asks.

"Ah, I might have been," the film critic says.

At this, the columnist launches into a story about how he was the Sunday editor on the day of that plane crash and how he ripped the front page apart to get it into the paper and ended up beating the Boston Globe to the story.

Just as he reaches the crescendo of his story, the business reporter cuts him off.

"You know," he says to the columnist, "You have a great story. But [the film critic] was on that fucking plane. I want to hear what he has to say."

God, I miss working in a newsroom.
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