Thursday, January 6, 2005
All in one smooth, choreographed motion
By my calculations I’ve repeated the action now approximately 13,000 times, each one taking perhaps four seconds: I reach over to the passenger’s seat, thumb the folded edge of the topmost paper, lift, pull it into my lap, roll with both hands, steer with the knees momentarily, left hand lowering the window, brake only as much as necessary in the approach to the tube, stuff the tight roll by its end into my hand—into the crease formed by the heel of the hand with fingers folded down, crimping it...
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Sunday, January 2, 2005
Unprotected news
It's not supposed to make sense. Life, I mean. (Oh, the paper route, too, but that's really just a reminder of the incongruity of it all—an allegory that supplies a tap on the shoulder.) It all seems to be continuing for another day and night, though (life and he paper route, I mean), so I’ll go along with it. Tonight is a blessing. No rain, no snow, visibility is good, roads are dry. Any night that I don’t have to hang newspaper prophylactics from the rear-view mirror is a good night. (Those...
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Saturday, January 1, 2005
I guess the tube is for decoration, merely a hollow prop
Why so much animosity? Oh it's not animosity, really; it's more like irritated but fairly good-natured puzzlement at what makes people tick. The thing is, these patrons—the source of my bundle-top notes of late—are not elderly or disabled. In their late 50s, I’d say, and quite ambulatory. How do I know this if everyone is asleep on my route? Well, not everyone is asleep. At this house, most often when I arrive there's a vehicle idling in the driveway. Frequently there's someone sitting in the...
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Slippin’ and slidin’
Where was I? Oh, yeah—the house where I'd slipped on the ice was a special case. It started with leaving the paper in the nice little tube at the foot of the driveway, just like the vast majority of the hundreds of places on the route. But soon there are notes on the bundle top. (What’s a ‘bundle top? See glossary below—actually there’s no glossary; you have to read the earlier posts and search for where they refer to the ‘bundle top.’ Sorry—job security.) Anyway, the notes on the bundle tops...
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Who knew?
It almost made me cry. I got out of the car, newspaper tidily rolled and ready in my hot little hand, slipped on the ice and went down on my ass. That wasn't what made me well up, though. It was the previous stop, the one where there had not been a peep out of the residents since I'd started the route back in October--not a complaint, not a word of any kind. (Of course the majority of these houses are dark when I make my rounds; it's 3:30 in the morning and people are simply sleeping, but they...
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Sunday, December 26, 2004
scrumptious and fancy cinnamon twist roll
I just can’t get used to drinking coffee at 2:30 in the morning right away. Okay, it took me two nights. Then there’s getting out of a warm bed to go out in the snow and ice in the cold and dark to scrape off snow and ice in the cold and dark. Holy shit. Is this what people who work third shift have to do? At least—I can presume—many who do it get justly compensated for their misery. Perhaps I’ve not told (whined to) you yet about the incommensurate and unjust compensation I receive. Anyway,...
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How it gets in the tube
After having done it I really don’t get it. People—now myself included—drag their asses out at an ungodly hour (middle of the friggin’ night to be specific), drive in the snow and cold to a sodium vapor-lit location where a truck—often arriving late—is loaded with strapped-up bundles of the local rag. They (we) wait for their (our) turn to off-load a complement of what passes for news to send along—at cost—to ignorant consumers. (I count myself among them.) The cost in fuel and wear and tear on...
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