Thursday, February 15, 2007

Mommy can i please have a newspaper route?

so, i was reading Lyle's blog (i would make it a link but i don't know how to do it) and i was reminded of the crazy times I've had while delivering newspapers. This is what i think of when someone talks about delivering newspapers:

1. The Journal is a newspaper that nobody, especially college students, cares about. My brother once dumped a whole bag full of The Journal newspapers into a dumpster to win a race in delivering them and NONE OF THE CUSTOMERS CARED!!! i always wondered how he would deliver to 20 doors and beat me when i only had 8 doors to deliver to.

2. speaking of those 8 doors i delivered to, there was an old man that lived at one of the houses and he was always on his porch when i came by. When i would hand him the newspaper he would be kind enough to give me a quarter. well, this happened so much that i came to expect it. One day he wasn't on the porch, so i rang the doorbell and when he answered the door i gave him the newspaper and said, do you have my quarter? yes, I'm a selfish little girl, but who cares, i got my money!

3. Could the Journal even be considered to be a real newspaper?

4. Delivering the Daily Harold is way worse than delivering the Journal. I think i came to this conclusion because i didn't know that delivering newspapers was the worst job in the world when i was young and delivering the Journal.

5. black hands, black walls, and angry mom. we would fold the newspapers in the kitchen and by the time we finished folding them all our hands were as black as.....well, newspaper ink. then since we were kids, we had to touch all around the light switches to turn on and off lights. My mom would be mad because not only did she hate the newspaper routes, but I'm pretty sure she hated that we turned everything that we touched black.

6. Big brothers are mean. this isn't necessarily only related to newspaper routes, but i remember being teased relentlessly by my brothers whenever we had to deliver newspapers. i don't remember anything exactly, but i know it happened. i think I've blocked it from my memory subconsciously.

7. I wonder if a certain family noticed how often i accidentally threw the newspaper onto the roof and not onto the porch. oops! i wasn't ever strong enough to throw the newspapers overhand, especially Sunday editions, from the sidewalk to the porch. So, instead i would lob it underhanded. Now when someone does this, the newspaper makes a huge rainbow like arch on the way to its destination. a lot of the time, the roof above the porch was in the way of the path of the newspaper. I think at some point there were about 5 newspapers on the roof. Now these people are my next door neighbors. hehe.

8. Newspaper routes ruin every holiday! i remember having to deliver papers on thanksgiving and Christmas. what a way to ruin someones two favorite holidays. wake up at 6am to deliver papers. yuck! one year on Christmas when i had to deliver papers, i decided to peek downstairs at some of my presents. I saw an American Girl Doll i had wanted for a long time down there and no one was there to see my excitement. i was mad that the newspaper route made me lose out on the excitement of me finding it for the first time with everyone around. I still acted excited when we all went downstairs to find our gifts, but it just wasn't the same.

well, that's all that i can think of. now instead of naive kids delivering newspapers, it's ladies from down south driving their minivans delivering the newspapers. what has happened to our society?

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Sorry, I gotta go, the phone is ringing!

I have been pretty busy lately ever since I got married. I'm working two jobs, one at Westridge and the other at Brent Brown Chevrolet as the receptionist. Jarred works at Brent Brown too, except he works outside in the cold while I'm inside in the warmth with a space heater under my desk.

There are some pretty interesting people in the car business and there are customers that are just as "special". Anyways, during slow times some of the salesman will occasionally come up and talk to me. Normally I'm okay with this because a lot of the guys here are nice enough. But then there are also the ones everyone else tries to avoid. However, I have a hard time avoiding these types because I have to stay at my desk in case a phone call comes in.

so this means that I'm stuck in a five square foot area while some guy is chomping up and down on his gum as spit flies out while he drones on about how selling cars is all in the mind. First of all, what the heck is that supposed to mean? Second of all, your weird!!!

okay, so I never said that to his face because I'm just too nice to do that. I've tried many ways to tactfully show that I am busy and can't talk, such as vigorously studying my philosophy textbook, but how long can anyone pretend to do that? I've also just not contributed to the conversation by just saying, "uhhuh, yeah, that's funny" but they don't get the clue that I'm not interested in talking with them.

so, I have come up with a new plan that just might work to keep the annoyers from talking to me for too long. On the phone that I use there is a button for how loud the volume is for the ringer. Normally I have it set to "off" because that way it only makes one small ring instead of one that keeps ringing and ringing when there are multiple people calling in at the same time. Anyways, when I push the button to make the ringer volume go up one notch it rings once to display how loud the ring will be.

Well, this will come in very handy when a salesman is blabbing on and on to me about who knows what. All I will have to do is slide my finger up to that button and push it once and the phone will "ring". I have to answer all the phone calls, which means I have to stop talking to whoever I'm talking to and pick up the phone. Then I will just say my little line of introduction to a dial tone and "transfer" them to someone then that will be that. If they are still at my desk after I'm off the phone then I will just do it again.

I think this is a brilliant plan! Hopefully it isn't too cruel. Should I not be such a pansy and just tell the salesman that I don't want to talk to him? What would you do?