Things to look for (or, Too bad "payback" is such a mean word...)

Nobody but my son will ever play Monopoly with me, because I'm incredibly immature.

Does anyone else ever do this? I hoard one-dollar bills. Then, whenever I land on someone else's property, I pay the rent with them. That'll teach you to buy Boardwalk.

I had a little flashback to the days when I had time to lounge around playing cut-throat games yesterday when my husband came home from running two magazine-related errands. (Hey, I can't do everything. I spent the day learning about the new confusion of postage and then taking my son to the special violin store, an hour out of town, for a next-size-up instrument. He's not full-sized quite yet, but it's pretty close. As his teacher said, "Don't build a relationship with this one. This isn't a marriage. You'll just be dating for a year or so. So don't get too attached.")

Anyway, my husband came in with two bags. One of them was full of boxes of big envelopes. The other was stuffed with several hundred one-dollar bills. Real ones.

We worked out who is owed how much on their orders if they paid $7-per-copy prices. It would be cruel to everyone involved to send a check for one, two, three, or four dollars. (One incredibly loyal subscriber got a whole extra issue, which should tell you something about how big a check she sent us in the first place. If you're reading this: I love you, Ms. Simone.)

So: if you're an old subscriber (and old in this context means that you subscribed sometime before last week), open your envelope with care. There'll be a little cash in it. I'm tucking it just inside the front cover of the magazine, snuggled up with the table of contents.

With it will be a little note from yours truly, thanking you for your support and explaining why the heck I'm sending you seemingly random bits of cash.

If your subscription runs out this issue, there will also be a note shamelessly begging you to resubscribe. These notes are going out to people whose address labels have the number 7 on them.

And now I'm going to spend this beautiful summer day (and most of the night) stuffing envelopes with Buffy, Angel, and the usual gang.

(It's okay. I had to stay home anyway. My lizard really needs a sunbath, and it's been foggy most of the week.)