Tales of a Paper Girl, Volume 1

Wednesday papers.

You may not know this, but I'm a paper lady... A legit, paper-slinging paper lady. I'll be candid. I never imagined myself doing this. And even now, it's kind of funny to think about... Here's how it came together, if you'd like to hear. Or read. Whatever.

March 2013:

I just found out I got into grad school. (Victory!) Then I was brutally reminded how financially taxing this commitment would be. Tuition. Books. Parking permit. ($500 to park on campus. They are making the bucks HAND OVER FIST! It's bananas!) Rent. Gas. Food. Living. I've done the whole grad school thing before, so I was well aware that the bills would continue to roll in, even if I wasn't working full time. So then, I was faced with the realities of returning to school. Crap.

Cue my colleague, "Glenn." Glenn is a tutor, an umpire, a teacher, and a paper-man. We met through MCC. Glenn has become a good pal at work, and he commiserated with my anxiety of returning to school. Glenn has a PhD in Chemistry, so he's familiar with student loans. I told him I was starting to look for a summer job to cushion my savings for the move I would be facing in August. "Wanna do a paper-route?" he said, with his nose partially in a book. Glenn is a big history buff. He almost always has a presidential biography in his hand. "Haha," I laughed. "Are you serious?" He looked up from his reading and grinned. "Sure, I could upgrade my route to a much bigger one and we could split it. You do three days a week, and I do three days a week. We could do Sundays together because it's a really big paper day. It's a two-(wo)man job." I stared at him.

"Well, alright," I said. This should be interesting.

And so it began. Here are few lessons I learned almost immediately.

Delivering papers is physically taxing. You arrive at the distribution center in the middle of the night. (130a or 200a depending on the day) You assemble all the papers. (Sometimes 1 part, sometimes 5 parts) You load all of them into your car, then you pitch them out your window.

Papers have the annoying tendency to slip under your seats and between your console. Pain in the...!

People take their papers seriously. If you miss a house, you'll hear about it. For us, delivering to a retirement community in an up-scale neighborhood is especially interesting. Customers are pretty much waiting outside for their paper when you pull up to their house. Do not be late. (On another note, do not get out of your car to hand them the paper. Although this would be considered respectful and proper, their dog might ATTACK you. Trust me, I know from experience. Lesson learned.)

Sunday papers are big and painful to throw. Next time you pick up a Sunday paper, remember your paper-(wo)man had to throw that to your driveway. Not only yours, but likely a couple hundred others. (If you're wondering, we deliver anywhere between 250 - 500 papers every morning, depending on the day. The number is always the highest on Sundays.)

Some people like their paper placed at their front door. (Reasons might include: disability, elderly, laziness.) This requires that you get out of your car and run it up to the front door. We only have five or six of these requests on our route, but it slows you down, nonetheless.

So humbling. I started meeting a lot of interesting people who are just trying to make it by. And it's interesting, I never imagined it would be the way it is. It's like an under-ground network of badass delivery people, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or X-Men. I'm serious.

Geez Louise. This was just the first week, and I was already exhausted! As the summer progressed, more interesting things started to happen. Stay tuned. ;)

Thinking About the Unthinkable

Papa Meyer schmoozing Miss Kate, my niece.

My family and I are quickly approaching the one year anniversary of my Dad's passing. September 11 now holds a completely different meaning for me. It was certainly a year filled with grief and difficult lessons learned. For my sister and I specifically, we discovered how important it is to have our affairs in order, even now. I'm serious. 

About a year before our Dad died, we had encouraged him to examine his end of life plan. This was not a, "You're going to die soon, so figure out what you want" type of talk. This was a, "We never know when or what will happen. You have to be prepared" conversation. Bless his stubborn soul. He refused. In his mind, dying was so far off, it wasn't even worth considering yet. Round and round we went. Ugh, it was exhausting. And, unfortunately, he won that conversation every single time. (Perhaps "winning" isn't the best way to describe our discussions. My Dad would yell and make grunting noises, shake his head and say, "You don't know what you're talking about." Then, he would change the subject or ask you to leave. Winning, I guess...?)

Fast forward one year. Our lives turned upside down when a heart attack took his life. It was devastating. On top of the grief we were feeling, we were charged with the task of organizing his affairs, or more accurately, we were charged with the task of trying not to shake our heads over the lack of organization in his affairs. He named no beneficiaries or familial contacts on any of his accounts. We had no idea what was out there. Any debt? Medical records? Who do we need to notify? Social security will need to know? Friends? Family members? I recall an interesting conversation with my research advisor (and good friend) from graduate school. She said, "It will take about a year to get everything in order. Be prepared." Ugh. Are you serious? No way. Melanie and I will be *on top of it!* 

I was lying to myself. 

Here we are, a year later, still working through the legalities of his life. 

And so the universe spoke loud and clear. Be prepared. Over the last few months, I have been making a *very* organized list of all of my financial obligations, beneficiaries and familial contacts. "Where will this go when I go?" is a question I've asked myself repeatedly. Gosh, I teach Death and Dying to college students for crying out loud. This should be an easy task! It's not. It's a challenge. More than just the sweat of producing such a bundle of information, I was stricken with anxiety over the possibility that someday something might happen. So, am I an alarmist? Certainly not. I'm prepared. I could be faced with the end today. Or tomorrow. Who knows? The reality is, Melanie and I *do not* want to leave our family members with the burdens our Dad left us. We miss him so, but perhaps his final lesson for us was his most valuable one. It is awfully interesting that we learned it after he was gone.