Oh the joy of being a paperboy's parent!
Up bright and early at 4:00 AM -- yeah right. Ever try getting a 12 year old up?
Who gets to be the back-up to a reliable teen? Me -- that's who.
Who gets calls from irate subscribers when things go wrong? Yup, you guessed it.

And then ....

There's the collections, with door-to-door personal interactions -- paperboy to client -- with valuable lessons in finance: accurate accounting, handling of cash. Yup, when the account falls short, my pockets get picked to make up the shortfall. Oh, did I mention that there's a candy store conveniently located along the route, ready to tempt a boy with pockets full of cash? He seemed to feel the account was a convenient source of a personal allowance, forgetting that the newspaper needs to get that money first. He doesn't get to keep it all!

Well, those are the annoying pitfalls, but not the cause of my embarrassment. That just sets the stage.

It started one Sunday morning.
Sunday papers are such a joy to deliver, being heavy and thick with all those advertisements and such. Well my son, Sean, was sick that particular morning. So my wife gently shook me awake and assigned me the take-over duties. Up I got at 3:30 AM, in order to meet the truck when it dropped off the load of papers -- a pallet load. I wasn't feeling all that chipper myself.
The route covered an area of six city blocks by 2 blocks, with several apartment buildings interspersed.
I trudged along pulling a wagonload of papers, delivering them after rolling them up and inserting them into a plastic bag as I went. The newspaper conveniently provided them. Takes a bit of dexterity at 4 AM, when you're tired and not feeling all that good, to accomplish that feat about 100 times.

All went well until about half way through the route, I started getting very uncomfortable. I clenched up. There was a painful knot in my stomach. I was in the middle of a neighborhood. It was 4:30 AM. There was nothing around me but the closed up houses, the wagon, parked cars, the birds -- maybe some cats. Suddenly, I had an explosive bout of diarrhea. Not the watery kind. Oh no! This was a true lava flow that filled my bluejeans and poured out my pant's leg.

Of course, I still had papers to deliver. So, I continued on, like the trooper I was, leaving a spotted and smelly trail behind. Some people were by now heading off to work. One guy was waiting, sitting on his porch. OH the LOOKS, the comments! Even got one offer to help.

The worst part was when I got home, and my wife had to peel those jeans off of me. She's the real trooper.

That was the end of the paper route experience.