Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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Bob's daughter and I had a brief conversation today about delivering papers in the winter, which brought back some amusing moments. I know I'm not the only one who experiences cracked skin in the winter; you expect the cracks to be in my left hand that spends most of the time out the window, but that's not the case. Almost every fingertip of my RIGHT hand is cracked at the corners of the fingernails; Bob believes that the newspapers pull the moisture out of your skin as you pick them up and fold them. I use my right hand to grab each paper off of the passenger seat, so my right hand probably does spend more time in contact with each newsapper than my left - perhaps he's right. Bob's daughter suggsted gloves, which was something I tried years ago when I first started helping Bob deliver. I stared with thin knit gloves, but soon figured out that knit gloves are too slippery, and I can't control the papers when I'm trying to fold them - I was smacked in the face as the paper unfolded, or it would unfold before I could get it into the plastic bag. Occasionally, it would get tangled up in the steering wheel, and with no hands on the wheel, I was headed into the nearest yard or mailbox, depending on how fast I was driving. It's amazing how you get used to using your hands and feet together to drive, and when you aren't using your hands for normal driving actions, your feet forget what to do. I was even stupid enough on a few occasions, to try and steer with my knees, but I'm short enough, that steering with my knees pulled my feet from contact with the pedals making it more difficult to slow car's speed. Next, I bought those gardenning gloves with the rubber dots on the palm so one can grip gardenning tools. Then, of course, my hands stuck to the newspaper and usually pulled the sections apart, -even ripped pages- and again, I couldn't get it folded ... and worse yet, the plastic bag stuck like glue. I couldn't get the bags open, couldn't flip them around in my hands so I could grap the open end to toss out the window. That just wasn't the answer, either. We have other carriers at our depot that use the little white cotton gloves like little girls wear to Sunday school, or the Marine's marching band wears, but those were equally as slippery, and often, slipped off of my hand completely. I have no idea how other people get used to working with gloves. I've even tried cutting the finger tips off- which kind of defeats the purpose ... my finger tips still crack. Another winter problem is the cold air whipping across the back of your neck while you have the driver's window down. This is a problem that occurs on rainy days as well. When we have some space between customers, we tend to roll the driver's window up. Can you see this coming? With the newspaper folded and in our left hand ... we go to reach out the window and **SMACK**... DUH, the window is UP! If it's a paper in a bag that you intended to throw because the customer doesn't have a box (tube), that can produce a ricochet kind of reaction - usually your nose takes the hit, or sometimes, your eyes or lips as the paper bounces off of the closed window. I've tried to stick the paper out of the closed window and had it get stuck in the steering wheel - I'm trying to steer to the left to get close to the mailbox, and the paper grabs the wheel and prevents the turn, or, God forbid, catches at the bottom of the steering wheel and pulls you harder toward the mailbox. Everyone knows that humans lose a large percentage of heat through their head - is it 80%? If you're delivering papers, a bad hair day is of no concern. Afterall, it's 3am, you see the same droopy eyed screwballs day after day, and you're going to have your head out the window all night in the dark anyway, so many carriers are smart enough to wear hats. It only took one night of wearing a hat with a pom-pom ball on top, (aka "tossle hat"), to learn that it doesn't fit out the window - and I'm short. Everytime I leaned out to shove a paper in a tube, my hat stayed in the car. I finally took it off and froze. Another challenge is figuring out what to wear on your feet. Typically, your feet are inside the car where the heater can blow on them, so you can't wear anything TOO heavy. On the other hand, at several points on every route, we carriers have to get out of the car for door delivery to someone who is handicapped (or wimpy, in a few cases), and wade through several inches of snow. Then, when you get back in the car with your feet under the nice heater, the snow melts and your shoes, socks and feet are wet and cold. The next time you have to get out, the snow clings to your wet clothing creating large balls around your ankles, only adding to the cold and wet when you get back into the car. If you wear the big rubber boots that you might wear sled riding, not only do your feet get too warm, but they tend to get tangled up in the pedals, or worse yet, UNDER the pedals. Bob and I drive five speeds, so we have an extra pedal that many folks don't have to deal with. Those bulky rubber boots also keep you from feeling the pedals as well, and for the first few stops, you nearly put yourself through the windshield. And how about getting the Big Three to do a better job designing defrosters? Have you ever noticed that the wipers on most cars rest at the very bottom of the windshield when not in use? Have you ever checked out where the defrosters are aimed on your windshield? It's usually about three inches above the Wipers. I've learned that I can tap my wiper lever and jump the wipers a few inches up onto the windshield where they're more inline with the defrosters. If it's sleeting or freezing rain hard enough that you need to keep the wipers running, they never get a chance to defrost, and we can be seen driving down the road with the window open, left arm reached out around the windshield, trying to catch the wipers on an up-swing so we can bang it against the windshield and knock off some of the ice. Getting out of the car is cheating. When you wake up in the morning and it has snowed, then rained freezing rain on top of the snow, and it has a nice hard crust on top, have you ever called the newspaper and claimed you didn't get your morning paper today? Do you live on any kind of incline at all? You might want to check the bottom of every hill. There are many stories from other carriers about throwing a bagged paper into a yard, and having it glide for miles across the crusty snow. Well, OK - feet across the snow - usually into the neighbor's yard, sometimes even three or four doors down. One night in the pouring, blinding rain, my friend Robin called me and said, "The paper you threw in the driveway of those people in the culdesac is at the bottom of the street..." The rain carried the paper down their driveway and down the street. This particular street has probably 7 or 8 houses on each side, and the paper was laying down in the grass along the main road. Many times, in the ice or driving rain, we can deliver down one side of the street, and by the time we get to the end, turn around and go back down the other side, you can see your papers laying yards away from the driveway into which you originally tossed the paper. It depends on how good of a carrier you are, if you get out of the car and move them all back, or keep driving pretending you didn't notice, in hopes that they all figure out which paper is their's. |