-=(Sagien)=-

115 Reasons For Quitting a Paper Route

Totally irrelevant picture. Because I'm terribly good looking.

I've had a paper route for a little over a year now. It involves delivering 228 papers to 230 homes. Recently, I've decided that I will no longer perform the duties of a paper carrier(paperboy if you will), and outlined in this piece are the reasons why.

1) I am awake. Right now.
It is 6AM. I know that there are quite a few people on this planet who are waking up right about now. Why should I complain about this, right? Well, I've been up since 3:30 AM.

That's right. While the rest of you are finishing up your drinking sessions, I am getting my brown ass out of bed. It might not always be at 3:30 AM(it almost never is), but it's definately(most of the time) before 4 AM. This is a struggle.

Waking up before the ass crack of dawn should be left in the province of vampires and people in the military.

2) Post-coital reasoning

Okay, guys. Guys! You guyths!

So you just got laid. Your scumbag(the actual word for a used condom) is in the toilet, floating happily. The girl is cuddling up to you nicely. You're slightly buzzed from the wine. It's 3:30 AM.

Fuck.

Or not. You have to get up. Tell the lovely creature on your bed that it's time for her to go or she can sleep there, uncomfortably, by herself in a room she's not familiar with.

Not to mention that for most members of the male species, post coital bliss involves passing out happily, knowing that his sperm is/isn't fertilizing an egg.

Sucks.

3) Production of Cash

Making money is quite impossible while doing the route. I'd have to say that this is akin to the Laws of Conservation of Energy, except a little bit retarded. Let me explain.

According to the laws of physics, energy cannot be lost or gained. For every positive, there is a negative.

For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.

Sure, I make a paycheck that I can spend on comic books, alcohol and video games. But I probably shouldn't do that.

Why?

Well, because over the last year or so, I've gone through two vehicles that I owned and almost one that I didn't.

Pile on top of that the price of gasoline and vehicular parts and labor, and you're netting $0.

Essentially, I have had this route for the last year purely for my health. It's like a workout. It gets me very tired, my arm muscles are getting bigger, and it happens between the hours of 4am and 6am.

4) I no longer wish to bend space and time.

Delivering papers is very aggravating.

Every morning, I go to the plant to pick up my papers. Let's think for a moment that it's a Wednesday, and tomorrow's Thanksgiving.

What's the day after Thanksgiving? Oh right, Black Friday.

For you non-consumeristic non-Americans, it's the day when this bloated nation goes out and spends all of it's money on Christmas presents.

So, it's the Wedneday before Black Friday. That means that Thanksgiving's paper'll be extra thick.

Okay. I pick up my papers.

This consists of:

- the front page bundles(8 bundles of 30 papers)
- the insert bundles(16[!] bundles of 15 papers). There's so much advertising in here, that they cannot bundle more without breaking even more laws of physics.
- the EXTRA insert bundles. (yet another 16 bundles of 15 papers). Even more advertising, and a story of why Thanksgiving is important.

Now, understand that I said they came in bundles.

Sagien... you don't deliver papers in bundles.

No, Timmy, I don't. I have to roll every single one of those bastards and shove them into a plastic bag. One at a time.

It's raining you say?

Double bag.

5) I'd rather be nonchalant about the weather

What a great segue into reason number five.

I love snow. I love rain.

I love hurricanes and tyhpoons.

Shftleft and mincus can testify for times when I went out into a hurricane and got lost and when they found me I was totally enjoying myself and taunting nature.

Those times are lost now. Those happy, happy times...

When you're driving in snow or torrential downpour and floods for two hours just to deliver insignificant pieces of two day old news, you start hating precipitation.

I'd rather not be the guy who complains about things falling out of the sky.

6) 1516 and 1506 Somers Point-Mays Landing Road and 43 Somers Ave.

Douchebags.

The first two houses call if you are late for one minute. And they are not pleasant. It is a matter of life and death that they have this newspaper before 6AM.

It goes with the morning cup of coffee, you see. We all know how important that is.

The last address is a bit more.. retarded.

The newspaper HAS to be in the newspaper tube(it's like a mailbox for newspapers). This gentleman cannot be bothered to get out of his car and bend over to pick the paper up. I'm sorry I missed.

This person also has a gravel driveway. Gravel tend to be loose.

He gets terribly upset that I move the rocks on his gravel driveway with my car.

I have a solution for that!

Get rid of the newspaper tube, and I'll throw the paper ON your gravel driveway. That way I get to keep off your property, and stay on the pubic road system.

It's a win-win! You see, I saw that movie The Grudge, and I don't like being in strange properties. I don't know what kind of evil resides in them.

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Sigh. There are a ton more reasons than this, but as you can see, I'm starting to whine and not be funny. I'll reset the writing perspective tonight and maybe add some more reasons at a later time.

Okay. I tag mincus, shftleft, clarus, wombat and dirt.

Why are you quitting your paper route?

Posted by sagien at January 31, 2006 06:46 AM