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December 15, 2004
Learning About Snow Throwing
It snowed a bit last night. It was one of those snows where you'd have to look very closely for some time before being spotting a solitary flake. Still it was snow, and it was falling.
It seems late in the season for snow. Maybe there is something to this global warming thing. Maybe Baltimore is warmer than northern Wisconsin. That's where I developed my idea of how and when the seasons change and by this time every year the snow was pretty deep.
One time right around Christmas my brother and I had to collect money from our cutomers; we had a paper route together. My mom insisted that instead of allowance we had to earn our money. So we looked for jobs, but no one would hire us because we were too young. Finally we got the idea that we could deliver newspapers as long as our mom was the one that claimed to do it. (This was a bit of a problem once the newspaper people found out, but since we promised to always deliver the papers together and our combined age was well over 13 they looked the other way.)
The paper route thing was a bit of a racket. We had to buy the papers from the company and then deliver them to the customers. Once a month we had to go around to the customers to collect the money they owed us (ie two boys without any sort of collection agency to back them up) , often to be told to come back later or to be greeted by nothing but silence because the occupant had moved without telling us.
Sure, people took us for weeks, and sometimes months, of free papers, which cut deeply into the pockets of our Lee brand corduroys, but every once in a while a door would open to reveal a very scantily clad woman. That made it worth it.
I remember occassionally seeing flesh scramble to cover itself before answering the door. This both excited and depressed me. "Why can't she be more like the lady on Reserve street? She doesn't cover up before she answers the door in that super short bathrobe. And she invites us in to sit at her table while she looks through all those drawers for her money."
Still, in the cold Wisconsin winters both my brother and I dreaded spending entire weekends trapsing around town, through feet of snow, to collect money. We would spend hours at a time out in the cold. People were rarely home, and if they were they didn't have money. "I'm a little broke right now 'cause of the holidays. Can you come back next weekend?" And to top it off, it was often too cold to hang around the house in the same dress-code as in the warmer months.
We got a little fed up one day. Our mom forced us to go "collecting," even though it was below zero. Then we hit several houses in a row, all of them empty. "I hate these people!" one of us said.
"Hey, his car is unlocked." the other one said.
"I'm going to throw a slush ball in this guy's car." "someone" told my brother. We knew the advantages of using slush, the dirty grey, gravel and sand-filled snow from the roads, over the clean white snow. After my brother launched a slush ball into my face and the result was a severely bloodied face instead of one simply snow-filled we adopted the use of slush with enemies (or when really, really mad) only - it was deadly. After I grabbed him by the collar of his white shirt and stuffed it full of slush we realized its staining potential.
"Someone" opened up the car door and threw in large chunks of slush while my brother nervously kept lookout. Then we ran.
We found it was easier than we thought. We decided to give the slush treatment to everyone that didn't pay us that day. But most of the customers' cars were either gone or locked. So we decided to expand our assault to include every unlocked car. They were all potential non-paying customers, and we would strike pre-emptively.
"Check that Cadillac." my brother told "someone."
"It's open. I've got it." Then "someone" grabbed the biggest chunk of slush yet, opened up the car door and tossed it in. then took off running.
We got a little over half a block away when someone yelled, "Hey you two! Get back here! I saw you!"
For some reason we did go back. I think it had to do with us still fearing adults, being 10 and 11 years old and all.
"I saw you from my window." He was attending a holiday gathering on the other side of the plate glass window a few yards from the car. A whole group of angry adults with reindeer and snowflake sweaters stood in the window. "You better clean that stuff up!"
We spent a few minutes cleaning out the car while the old guy supervised. "Ok. That's good. Now what are your names?"
During the cleaning we gained presence of mind. We shouldn't have gone back. We should evade.
"Matt Fischer."
"And yours?"
"Mike Fischer."
"You guys are bothers?"
"Yeah." It was true, we were brothers. So were Matt and Mike Fischer, the guys that lived two doors down from us until earlier that year when they moved across town.
"What's your phone number."
"[something fake]." We learned early to give fake phone numbers when in trouble, just like women do to me in bars these days.
"Alright. Well you better get home, I'm calling your parents."
We ran down the street discussing things in between breaths. "We shouldn't have gone back." "I only did because you did. Why'd you go back?" "You did first." "No I didn't." "We shouldn't have gone back. Next time let's not go back." "Yeah, that was dumb."
It was a learning experience.
I can't wait for more snow. I've got my technique down.
Posted by calculatoronfire at December 15, 2004 01:23 PM