From: esp51@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: TV ads / bible / gun control / life in general
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 15:15:04 GMT


			  The Paperboy

  Back during my undergraduate days in Wichita Kansas, I had an early
morning paper route in order to help pay for room and board. It was
a large route as paper routes go, about 400 papers.  I threw them out
of my car onto driveways and sidewalks as I drove down the streets,
usually between five and six o'clock in the morning.  There was one old
bag who insisted that I get out of my car and put it on her porch.  She
would bitch to my manager if I lobbed it in her driveway, something to
do with her being too old to walk and bend over to pick it up.  So one
night after a few beers I frisbeed a aluminum trash can lid through
her front window.  She stopped complaining, and I didn't have to get
out of my car anymore.

  When I first started my route, it was frustrating: folding, banding,
driving, searching for addresses, throwing papers out the window
into mudpuddles, stopping, getting out, throwing papers too far and
taking out screen doors, ect, ect...  Then after about 4 or 5 months
it began to get easier as my throwing skills improved and I memorized
the route.  After a year, I had the whole thing down cold, and could
do the entire route in an hour.  I would drive up to the bundle about
5 AM, park my car and fold all four hundred papers. This would take
about 45 minutes.  Then I would drive fourty miles an hour down the
streets of suburbia, winging them out the window as fast as I could.
It took me only 15 minutes to throw them all.

			     Cats

  I stayed with the route for 2 1/2 years, and towards the end, I was
a veritable black belt with a newspaper.  With a tightly bound areo-
dynamic tuesday paper, I could knock a beer can off the roof of a
parked car 25 yards away, while driving 40 miles an hour.  At any rate,
my favorite extraneous targets were cats.  I'd rarely get a shot at
one though, they'd hear the plop, plop of the newspapers landing as
I came barreling down the street, and run behind the nearest bush.
One tuesday morning though, I'll always remember.  I had just turned
the corner and was hauling ass down this street that had only
2 or 3 subscribers.  I looked ahead, and on about the fourth lawn down,
there was a white cat in the exact middle of the yard, soaking up the
early morning sun.  There were no cars parked in the street, so I
had a clear line of fire.  Furthermore, the cat was facing the house,
and because I had not thrown any papers since rounding the corner, it
would think I was just another car.  I took all this in in a fraction
of a second, followed by an Adrenalin rush.  I floored the accelerator.
I actually skipped a house I was supposed to throw, so as to give
the cat no warning.  When I got within range, I was doing 50 mph, and
I could see the cat much better.  It was still facing away from me,
and was actually squatting there, taking a shit.  So I wound up and
released an especially tight bound paper, leading the target by a
good 10 yards to allow for foward momentum.  I gave it some extra
wrist action to creat a boomerang effect.  Calculating 50 mph forward
motion coupled with 50 mph out the window, that paper was problably
doing a good 75 mph, enough to kill the mangy feline if the paper
struck end on.

  What happened was the paper struck the cat flat across the shoulder
blades dead center just as it was squeezing out a turd.  This smashed
the cats face into the grass, and rocket launched its turd, which
flipped up and over, toward the house.  Then the cat gathered and
jumped a full three feet straight up with its fur and tail all standing
up.  In mid air, it ejected yet another turd in silhoutte.  This is all
I saw for a while as I just about died laughing and stopping the car.
When I did look up again the cat was fully recovered and was haughtily,
stiff leg, tail up, walking away, never the less keeping one eye on
the paper lying nearby.