Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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Years ago, before the Tribune Review bought out the North Hills News Record, the News Records were an overnight paper only on weekends. Since the Post Gazette is also an overnight paper, Bob hired his brother to deliver the News Records on weekends (Friday night into Saturday morning, and Saturday night into Sunday morning.) One Saturday night, as I approached Route 8 from Wildwood Road, there appeared to be newspapers scattered all over Route 8 at the intersection. While I waited for the light to turn green, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a dark shadow scampering about, bouncing from lane to lane, picking up all of the papers, which I found strange, because no one ever bothers to pick up whatever has blown out of their car or truck ... usually. As he got closer, I realized it was Bob - I pulled over into the BP parking lot across Route 8 and got out to help him. You're all aware that Sunday papers are huge; usually about two pounds of newspaper and four pounds of advertisements. Sunday papers come in five sections for us to "assemble" - we get three sections on Saturday mornings that we go back to the depot to "stuff" after we deliver our Saturday papers, then on Sunday morning ,we get two more sections that the assembled section goes into on Sunday. We found it faster to just put together the Saturday sections, then put together the two Sunday sections, and lay the Sunday assembly on top of the Saturday assembly while we drive, rather than actually "stuffing" them together. Once they're completely assembled or "stuffed", a stack of eight or nine papers is about a fifteen inches high. We usually bundle them together with string so that they don't slide all over the seat or bed of the truck while we're delivering - nothing worse than re-stuffing ads back into the papers. Well, one of the tied bundles of eight had fallen off of Bob's tailgate at that intersection, and was blowing all over Route 8. How on earth do you separate out ads from eight papers and try to stuff each one so there is only one copy of the JC Penney ad in each, one copy of CVS in each, one copy of Arby's in each - you get my drift. What a mess. While we were out in the middle of Route 8 around 3am, along comes brother Wayne, who stopped and tried to help, also. The chances of all three of us meeting up in the same location would be pretty rare, but Bob lucked out and we all intersected at the perfect time to help him try to retrieve all of his papers. Along these same lines, imagine stacking tens of Sunday papers in your front seat, almost to the ceiling of the car, and having a deer run out in front of you. EEEEEEEEK! After your heart slips down into your chest cavity again, your head ceases bounce between the steering wheel and the head rest, and you pry your paralized feet off of the brake pedal, you realize you have scattered about 40 - 50 papers ALL OVER THE CAR, including under your feet and pedals. And, you know...? It is inevitably a day like that, when some woman somewhere was counting on the Sears Ad in her paper, and you just don't get them put back together perfectly, which generates an "incomplete" complaint in your mail the next day. We have learned one thing over the years, though ... if you are faced with trying to re-stuff Sunday papers ... make sure each and every paper has a TV guide, because THAT is the ONE thing everyone will complain about not having. I thought that was what they made remote control gizmoes for !!?? |