Another Snow Anecdote

DISCLAIMER: The following blog makes no attempt to be gender-neutral. We apologise in advance to all paper girls who may be offended.

Greetings, Internet blog-readers,

The snow of which I wrote in my last blog has long since disappeared, and it's back to normal service for the British transport system: meaning, of course, that it's still late, but at least it's consistent. But, in the absence of anything else to blog about (except the fact that it's Valentine's Day, of course, but I did all that last year), I thought I would share with you a nice story about an event that befell me in the remnants of the snow on Saturday morning.

Most of you will know that Saturday mornings have meant one thing for me over the past eighteen months: work. Every Saturday morning at seven I crawl into the shop, usually curling up in a corner between the honey and the pickled onions and going to sleep peacefully for a few hours. But this morning, it was not to be. Oh no.

The careless, stupid and utterly, utterly selfish paper boy has decided that the week in which the weather conditions resembled somewhere between the Northwest Passage and the upper reaches of the Himalayas would be the perfect time to break his leg. So, of course, those of us actually doing real work in the shop are expected to cover for him. The infuriating thing about his particular round is that it involves houses in reasonably close proximity to the shop, with owners too lazy to get up and actually pick up their paper themselves.

When Brian used to work at the shop (when he wasn't trying to kill me), he would always tell the paper boys the same thing. "If the paper doesn't fit through the letter box, put it on the doorstep and ring the bell. We're all up, so why shouldn't they get up and get their paper? Lazy bastards." Trudging through the frozen wastes of Droitwich at eight-thirty on a Saturday morning, I couldn't help but agree.

Particularly galling is the house immediately opposite the shop that has the Daily Mail delivered. It is not an exaggeration to state that I could quite easily stand in the doorway of the shop and throw the newspaper into their front garden. That is how close they are, yet the lazy fools can't be arsed to waddle ten yards into the shop and pick up a newspaper. I would have thrown the paper into their front garden, but I decided they probably wouldn't be too happy if it was soaking wet. After all, everybody knows the only use for the Mail is as a good source of kindling. Or toilet paper. In either case, its functionality is inhibited when wet.

The one thing I discovered once again on this particular paper round is that people clearly carefully choose their front doors to ensure maximum difficulty for the people delivering their newspapers. Those people with the smallest letter boxes invariably ask for a Daily Telegraph, which has to be divided into its constituent parts, shredded and then deposited through the letter box with a roll of Sellotape and instructions as to how to stick it back together again. And those people with Telegraph-sized letter boxes always want a copy of the Sun. Not only this, but most letter boxes appear to have mechanisms attached to ensure that no matter how fast you try and remove your fingers, you always get them caught. Many a time, I'm sure, has someone picked up their morning paper only to find a bloody finger or two wrapped inside. This is why there are so many paper boys: the old ones all have to retire once they've lost both hands (and, in some cases, feet).

Actually, some people's letter boxes were so tiny that it was difficult to see how people could get letters through them, let alone something as big as a newspaper. I have written to the Telegraph to ask them to please start producing a "paper boy-friendly" version of their paper, which will fit through the average-sized letter box. I will also begin posting notes through people's doors requesting that a) they get a bigger letter box, and b) they move their dog out of the hall. This is another occupational hazard: those paper boys that manage to avoid having their fingers severed by a demonic letter box usually end up having their arm chewed off by something that is a cross between a Rottweiler and a rabid wolf with a hangover, only more violent.

On Saturday there was an additional threat to my extremities: the cold. In some ways I would have preferred to have my hands detached from my person by a dog or a letter box, rather than frostbite. Paper boys can't wear gloves, or the supplements from the newspaper will inevitably slip out of their grasp and into the nearest drain (that's another thing - why are newspapers almost gravitationally attracted to drains?), causing much grief when the owner of the house attacks the paper boy with a rusty kettle.

Thinking about it, this could actually be one of the most dangerous jobs in Britain. As soon as the insurance companies latch onto this, the paper boys are screwed. Forget bomb technicians and deep-sea fishermen: no amount of high explosives or North Sea squalls could possibly pose the same risk as a man-eating letter box.

Revolutionary and high-risk regards,

Red Andy