Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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As noted in several past installments, (for instance, Life in Reverse , and Yes, boys, I AM A woman-driver) when I learned to drive, I learned to drive a five speed, and I've pretty much stuck with that choice for my entire driving life. I just feel like I have more control over the car, especially in the winter. Control can be a good thing when you drive for a living, or drive as much as I do. Most people who deliver newspapers with us are appalled at the fact that we all drive standard transmissions - wondering how we have time to shift between grabbing a paper, four or five days out of seven there is an extra advertisement to grab, fold it all up, pull a bag from the sleeve of bags hanging somewhere in your car, stuff in the paper and get it all out the window before you pass up the address waiting for their morning blues. AND, you'd better have pretty good aim as well, there's nothing worse than winding up to whip the paper Frisbee®-style out the window and the end you're NOT holding smacks off of the inside of the door frame, catapulting the paper flatly backward across (if you're lucky) your forehead or (if you're not so lucky) your nose or eyes. We think the trick is, to just stay in second or third gear and not shift. Of course, you'd better have some pretty quick hands if your customers are pretty close together!! When Bob and I were about eighteen years younger, and had larger routes, he gave me a Dodge Pick-up Truck to use. It was only a two-wheel-drive, (and where I come from, that's a sissy truck), but it saved on gas mileage and was still able to carry over a half ton of newspapers on any given Sunday. Unfortunately, this truck was an automatic. **EEEEEK** is right! I did fairly well, usually, but once in awhile, I'd forget that leaving it in drive is NOT the same as neutral, and it would start to drive away without me. One particular night, I stuck a paper in the tube and it unfolded or something and sprung back out onto the ground. I snarled, and opened the door. Now leaning out of a vehicle to pick up a paper takes a certain skill - I'm short, so I have to first, remove any papers I have wedged under my legs (pre-folded for the next customer), then scoot my back side toward the middle of the seat just a little bit and hang onto the steering wheel with my right hand while I reach the ground with my left. I usually throw in a curse word or two before I scoot my tailbone back to it's rut at the outside edge of the seat, close the door and re-fold the paper to try again. Now, with a NORMAL car, (one with a manual transmission), I have my right foot on the brake and the gearshift in neutral. With an automatic, I'd get sloppy once in awhile and leave it in drive while I leaned out the door. So on this particular night when the paper jumped back out of the tube, which wasn't anything rare, I mistakenly left the truck in drive, put my right foot on the brake, scooted to the right, opened the door and leaned out to grab the paper on the ground. Before I had a chance to utter the usual four-letter grunt, my right foot slipped off of the extra wide brake pedal and the truck started to slowly move. Because I was pulling on the steering wheel with my right hand positioned at about seven o'clock, the wheel started to turn to the left, and I was conveniently in a culdesac ... on the "wrong" side of the road, travelling clockwise. The truck door started to close on me and pinch me in such a way that it was starting to pull me off of the seat and onto the ground. Since the wheel was turning TOWARD the yard and driveway of the customer who's paper I was trying to retreive, I natrually drove up against the lamp post. I was stupid and stuck my left foot out into the road, as if that was going to stop me, (duh), and it somehow got caught on the mailbox, and was beginning to bend around backward. I was still young enough and agile enough from a former life of gymnastics, that I was not hurt, but SHOULd have been. Now, this is one of those times where something happens, something or SOMEONE intervenes, because I was not going to get out of that mess without taking out the light pole or taking off my left arm at the shoulder. I even think my head was starting to get wedged between the door and body of the truck. I managed to somehow - don't have a clue how - bounce off of my left foot and squeeze myself back into the front seat in an upright position, while grabbing the steering wheel with my left hand at about three o'clock, and pulling clockwise, which turned the truck just in time to refrain from taking out the light pole with my door. I hit the brake and shoved the shifter on the column into park. I sat there for thirty or forty seconds trying to piece together what just happened. I couldn't. There was NO way I could have physically accomplished what just happened. I briefly said my thanks and continued on my route - vowing that FIRST CHANCE I GOT, I was going to have me a different car. GIMME A STICK!!! |