Paper-girlin

Now, my children, I shall tell you all about one's life as a morning paper-girl driving someone else's car in a famously big district.

They called me up on July 3, just as I had started to find inner peace about not having a summer job in 2006 either even though I tried this year, lazy-looking bahstahd, and offered me a large district close to my home, though I had never seen any of the streets in my life. July 24 - August 26. It would, sadly, require a car, to which I had claimed to have access. Aye. I asked my dad again before accepting, he said I might use it, and the thing was settled. :D

A couple of days later dad realised that it was a car district, not just a place so far away that I would need the car to get there. :p Haha, too late for him to take back his promise. Forgive us, car.

I went to an info meeting, rode with the regular paper-girl for two days and drove around the streets myself as many times. She shares the district with another person, I don't! :p

Regular paper-girl: "...so I'm just waiting to find a hole in my exhaust pipe from all these curbs. You drive that big Volvo, no? Not as easy to turn as this little car, I suppose... and Volvos have such low chassis too."
Yoze: "Ehehehe... oh yeah? It's not my car, either."
Regular paper-girl: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

:S

On my first day the papers were dumped late, and I was missing 3 bunches. Ouch. Had to pick them up later. I was at it from 3.30 to... somewhere near 8 that day. All the papers are supposed to be delivered at 6. This rarely happens even on the best of days, since I'm COUGH alone COUGH. :p

On the 3rd day or so on my own, I was at least starting to learn behind which bush every friggin letterbox was hidden, so I didn't have to get out/reverse as much as on the first day. However, there is still a LOT of UNNECESSARY getting out of the car to do. Evil subscribers place their letterboxes 4000 km from the street (when in most cases they could put them within reach of the car window). This is not easy on my:

~Planet (killing the engine is rarely worthwhile)
~Transmission
~Car door
~Customers' neighbours' sleep (for reason, see above point - but I suppose the Evil Subscribers really desire to be awakened by flapping car doors)
~Left elbow (which gets torn outta joint every time I close the door, now, so I've started closing this left door with my right hand, yup)
~Customers down-district (whose paper gets delayed, which probably gets blamed on GUESS WHOM!)

The evilness of Evil Subscribers (OK, some of whom are probably just thoughtless, but then, how come so many of them got through med school, judging from their med mag subscriptions? Hey, maybe they want to treat our elbows) is brilliantly illustrated by a story that Regular Paper-Girl told me on my first training day. The people on [CENSORED] [CENSORED] Street have placed a row of skull-sized white rocks sufficiently far outside their letterbox to prevent our cars getting near it. Those rocks must be REALLY GREAT IN THE SNOW! *SCREEEEEEEEEECH* *BOINK* The subscriber had the rock problem/s pointed out to him by our employer. Would he move a few rocks so the paper people wouldn't have to get out of the car? His reply was:

"Some lazy paper-girls you've got!"

8O~

OK, they've glued my exploded head back together now. One day I will calculate how many % of the letterboxes can't (easily) be reached from the car...

Anyway, I'm so never going to accept another car district... :p At least not more than once a week or summat. But next summer I'm sooooooo gonna ask if they need someone for a walking-district. That would be sweeeeeeeeeeeet! *sniffs sweet summer night air & roedeer*

A few more scary bits of the job are:

~The number of wheels I have damaged severely. (2)
~The potential amount of CATS I MIGHT SERIOUSLY... MASH! :O They've seemed afraid enough of the car so far. *rhyme* PHEW... KNOCK ON WOOD, TWO MORE DAYS... I can't drive slowly either! This morning, for example, I was in Cat Mash Mode and it took me pretty much exactly 3 hours, now that all the subscribers are back from their holidays, which meant I couldn't hand out all the papers before the magical 6am. Death.

To make things better, or not, my salary arrived today! :B It was much better than I thought, too... Mmm, hey, rainforests & London...

~*~

Tomorrow, I depart. Not for London. But for GLASGOW! Alone in a completetly strange place. I TOLD YA! The sun trips turned out to be more expensive than I thought, but I had to go somewhere... besides Norway... especially now that I had told everyone I was going away alone, little cheeky bahstahd.