If you didn't know, Steven and I started a paper route about 2 weeks ago. We had both delivered for the Standard Examiner when we were kids, and thought "how hard could it be?" Well, I guess we found out how hard it could be. Here is the list of things I learned during our 12 days of delivering newspapers:
~My husband is kind of an irrational/illogical/*grumpy* man in the middle of the night… (love him anyway)
~Believe it or not, it IS possible to get car sick while you are driving. Ugh. Who knew. Thank you, Sea Bands I guess… oh, and yay for wearing contacts in the middle of the night!
~Wait, people still take a paper EVERY DAY?! Whatever… it pays well I guess.
~JK, $800 a month is not worth filling up the gas tank every 4 days, being a zombie mom, and having to go to bed when my kid does...
~Delivering 4 papers simultaneously is slightly (ha) more complex than just delivering one paper. I never thought I’d miss the days on my bike…
~It’s harder to recover from getting no sleep when you’re 25 than when you’re 15. First Sunday on the route, 3 naps were had and church was attended sans shower. No joke.
~NO ONE is up at 3 in the morning. Except your paper carrier who may or may not be contemplating whether it is worth the paycheck to keep getting up at insane hours of the morning just so you can have your paper on your driveway (or porch-extra effort, mind you) by 6 am.
~Because no one is up at 3 am, when you are driving around at said times, don’t be afraid to drive on the wrong side of the road if you have to.
~While I’m not grumpy at 2 am, I do get grumpy during the day if I have been up since 2 am… just ask my poor primary kids.
~When they say it gets easier, they mean it. I actually got done on time the second day that I did the whole route. But that wasn't enough to keep me on the route.
~Doing the whole route on Sunday, however, was enough for me to quit the route... (see also thing number 4)
~I married a wonderful man. When we decided to quit, we called and they said we still had to do one more day. Technically it was my day (we had split the days). But Steven said that he would do it so I could sleep. Even though he had to be to work that day. I just love him so much.
~Even when I'm exhausted, and I hate what I'm doing, it's really hard for me to quit. I just don't want to be a "quitter." I've only ever quit one job before because I hated it so much. And if you know me, you know I've had lots of jobs.
~I need to find another way to make a little extra cash...
