Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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I'm not sure exactly what, after all of this time, jogged my memory this morning, but I think I experienced a "flash back" during the paper route. I'll let you be the judge. Bob's son has had his current paper route for almost ten years; Miss R had it prior to "C". At one point, and I can't say that I blame her, she had a complete breakdown, and I delivered her route plus mine for over three months. The reason for the breakdown is irrelevent. Certain days of each week, the papers are not only late, but arrive in more than one section requiring assembly before we leave the depot, so papers can be a good deal later than other days of the week. It doesn't take long to find out who the people are that can't BEAR to receive their paper later than 6am - they are generally the ones waiting either in their vehicles, running in the driveway so they can pull out and glare at you from their open window while you cheerfully hand their paper to them through your open window. Or, they could be the folks sitting on the porch waiting for your arrival, trying to act like they're just enjoying the morning air and their paperless cup of coffee. Many times when I'm late, I will just bag and throw the papers near the mailbox posts, rather than slowing down enough to stick them into the tubes (paper boxes), but there are those few who think they have good reasons for insisting that their paper be tubed, no matter what. Oh sure, there are people with back and knee problems, folks in wheel chairs and so on - we usually know who those folks are, and if we don't, we don't question the reasoning behind the demand. We might complain about it, but only because it feels like such a waste of time on a late day, and such a dangerous act during rush hour. During a previous week, I'd had a conversation with a gentleman waiting at his mailbox for his newspaper who was outwardly upset about my tardiness, no matter what the reason. I'd have to guess he was in his sixties, maybe even late sixties, and didn't seem to have an obvious reason for needing the paper in the tube, but I tried to honor the request after being asked. About three months after Miss R's return, she overslept and lost the route anyway, which is when C took it over. Fast forward to this morning, a Sunday, during a time when C has been involved in an accident and will be off work for a few weeks, or maybe even a couple of months. I was maintaing a steady, timely delivery rate when I realized I'd left a stack of 100 papers behind at the depot and had to return to get them, adding at least a half hour to my estimated time of completion. When I got back to the depot, I also found a vacation pack that I had to back-track and deliver. **A vacation pack is a bag containing newspapers from previous days while a customer has been on vacation, meant to be delivered upon their return** Delivering the Vac-Pack added another fifteen minutes to my time, and meeting up with C's girlfriend who is doing a part of his route for him, too, added another five or six minutes. By the time I'd reached the same house of gentleman I just described above, I was nearly ninety minutes late. A brief video of a delivery I made years ago when it was Miss R's route ran through my head. One of the days after my converstaion, I was late and knew I needed to put the paper in his tube. The brakes screeched as I tried to slow down enough that I didn't break my arm between the tube and my door frame, and as I spun gravel driving away, I glanced into the side mirror to make sure the paper stayed in the tube, but what I saw was this gentleman whom I assumed requested tube delivery because he was older and and less agile than his younger days, ran down from his porch and tried to chase me waving a broom and yelling something that I coudln't hear over the gravel and radio.... Eh- I probably didn't want to hear it anyway. I just kept driving. This morning, ninety minutes later than the time I SHOULD have arrived at his house, I smirked as I slowed down enough to stuff the paper in his tube - his porch was empty. |