This one time, when I was in high school, I was a total journalism geek.  I was the editor of my high school paper for three years, which was a part of my lifelong education in bossing people around.  During one of those years, I went to Washington D.C. for the Washington Journalism Conference.  It is an assembly of high school journalism geeks into teams that write and edit and publish a newspaper.  I think we published two while we were there.  They also brought in journalism peeps for us to talk to and interview and whatnot.  At this conference, I attended a small session where Helen Thomas visited and talked about her time as a White House correspondent.  She brought copies of one of her books, I can’t remember which one (possibly “Dateline: White House”).  During the Q&A, I asked if the books she had brought were for sale, and she said that yes, she’d sell them for $30 apiece.  Of course, even though I was the one that asked the question, other people grabbed up the books and I didn’t manage to snag one.  After her talk, I went up to her and asked if I could give her $30 and my address and have her send me an autographed book.  She said yes, and I gave her a travelers cheque for $30 and eagerly awaited my book.  It never came.

14 years later, I could give two shits about what she said about Israel.  I want my $30!