Sex, Death, and Phone Book Delivery

This past fall has seen me go down a long, slow slide into financial oblivion. The wolf which normally sits at my door has been joined by an entire pack, and the local animal control officer added insult to injury when he cited me for allowing my “pets” to run loose with no collars and no rabies tags. Only in Manitou... Anyhow, I needed to get my hands on some cash if only to buy a little hamburger to throw at my new friends and pay for their tags, so they could freely wander off and sit next to some other sucker’s door. Maybe I could even pile them all up in my truck and drop them off at my ex’s place in the dark of the night with no one the wiser.

Desperate measures were definitely called for, and few jobs are more desperate than signing up to do telephone book deliveries in Colorado Springs in December. But DEX was hiring, while no one else seemed to be. I’m an old hand at the telephone book delivery game, so I gave them a call. Sure enough, they've started deliveries on their new book in my area. The lady I spoke with on the phone said to be down at the distribution center for my training session at 10:00am sharp the next day.

I woke up in the morning to a cold, wet rain - par for the course in telephone book delivery season in Colorado - at least it wasn't snow. I went out to my car (side-stepping my new pets) and pulled off the parking tickets which always adorn my windshield since there’s never any legal parking anywhere in Manitou. Then I finally put away last summer's camping equipment into my basement (I like driving around with my camping gear at all times. It gives me a feeling of security knowing that I can head for the hills at a moment's notice). In place of the camping gear I threw in my battered boom box and a selection of tapes suitable for theme music to my task - an eclectic mix of Emmy Lou Harris and the Spy Boy Band, Shawn Colvin, Jewel, Reba Macintyre, Matchbox 20, and Toby Keith. I grabbed my battered book of El Paso County road maps and set off for the distribution center.

The distribution center is in a warehouse in a pretty crummy part of town. The area resembles a bombed out section of Bagdad as much as it does anywhere else. A couple of disgruntled looking workers with their collars pulled up against the rain were leaning against several enormous pallets of tightly wrapped cellophane bundles of phone books outside a dilapidated building. In case their was any remaining doubt as to what the place was, the entryway sported a bright yellow banner announcing "Phone Book Delivery Here!"

"Well, at least it doesn't say 'Arbeit macht frei" I thought to myself as I walked beneath the sign and through the door. I was greeted by an artificially cheerful man of about 35 whose name I'll never remember. Luckily, this was his first time doing the job, so he didn't remember me. He actually smiled at me as he waved me to a seat among the 4 other eager would-be phonebook delivery "contractors." The group was having an animated discussion about the best way to stay warm in one's car. They all looked as though they brought real life experience to their thoughts on the subject. The woman in front of me swore by a 5 pound coffee can stuffed with a roll of TP onto which a few drops of alcohol had been poured. "You drink the rest," she advised her audience with a wide grin.

Mr. Artificially Cheerful broke up the debate by announcing that it was time to view the 10 minute training film after which we would be called up one at a time to choose our routes and sign paperwork. Everyone obediently stopped talking and turned their eyes to the video which started out by stating the rigorous requirements for selection as an independent contractor for delivery with the DEX Phone Book Company. You have to be 18 or older and present a document which bears at least a faint resemblance to a driver's license. I figured my Colorado State ID card would suffice. I am a legally licensed driver, I just can't figure out where I put my drat license. It's been missing since before the November election, and I haven't gotten around to going and standing in line for 3 hours at DMV for a replacement.

I spent the rest of the time the video was being aired by pretending to take notes while actually drawing nice bright suns with my new faux gold ink pen and thinking of other jobs where I was too old, too long away from my profession, over-qualified, under-qualified, too anxious, too spacey, and too slow to even be considered. I thought about my last semi-real job as a gardener's assistant where I made the mistake of telling the woman in charge of our crew (a fundamentalist Christian) that there was scientific proof in favor of the theory of evolution. I was fired a couple of days later because I didn't remember everything I was supposed to do and slowed down the entire crew and was making the outfit lose money. But my REAL crime was that I didn’t love Jesus the way my boss loved Jesus. Oh well. Sic transit gloria mundi

After the video finished I went up with the rest of my fellow independent contractors to view a large map of El Paso County tacked on the grey wall. Since DEX delivery had already been underway for about a week or so, most of the choice, best paying routes were already gone. However, I spied two good paying (it's all relative) routes left on the very top-most northern part of the map. I pulled a metal folding chair up to the map and snagged the two route stickers. You were only supposed to take one at a time, but I figured it wouldn't hurt anything if I "reserved" one, and no one seem to notice when I put the extra sticker in my pocket.

I walked out of the building with my first delivery route sheets in hand - 500 books at 23 cents per book to a hilly, new subdivision in the northern part of the county plus a $15 "bonus" for extra gas. My gold ink pictures must have worked some magic because the sun was shining at last. It felt good to have work again...

You have never driven unless you've driven a Ford Explorer with the clutch giving out, piled with about a thousand pounds of phone books. My Explorer responds like a hog in a mud hole under such situations - it's sluggish, lethargic, but has enough momentum to go into one hell of a slide if your attention wanders from the task of steering the thing for even a moment. I waddled out onto the interstate with my first load of books and found myself cruising along at 70 mph to my amazement. Good Explorer! Good girl! Alas, I didn't see my exit sign looming up ahead until too late, and I didn't dare slam on the breaks and swerve to the right hand lane with my heavy load (inertia will get you every time), so I ended up driving my heavily laden vehicle an extra 5 miles to the next exit ramp and then 5 miles back.

I was amazed when I finally pulled off I-25 at the correct exit. Only 5 years ago that particular stretch of land had been nothing but rolling prairie. Now it's a vigorous new cancer of a suburb complete with a King Soopers, a liquor store, and even a Starbucks with a convenient drive thru. Houses dotted the landscape like mushrooms, and each one was destined to receive its very own DEX Book courtesy of yours truly and a gimpy '92 Ford Explorer.

I pulled into the King Soopers parking lot to get my bearings and bag up the first load of books. The DEX book comes in packs of four which must be broken open and then each repackaged into a nice litterbug yellow individual bag. I found a deserted part of the parking lot and began to throw 4 packs of books out of the Explorer. I estimate that each pack weighs 20 pounds - not all that much, but enough if you are a middle aged woman unused to manual labor and you have to deal with 120 packs for one route. I had about half the route - 60 packs - in my Explorer. The best technique for breaking open the pack is to hit it smartly upon your car bumper. When executed properly, this technique will yield you two neat half packs of two books each; the books can then be removed and placed in their individual bags which are then slung back in thru tailgate of your car. With a little practice you can sling the books all the way to the front passenger's side.

I had been breaking open, bagging, and slinging books for about 20 minutes when a couple of kids on lunch break from some local construction crew pulled up in their truck to eat their King Sooper's deli sandwiches and watch the show. When I finally decided I had enough bagged books for my first run and got in behind the driver's seat to take off, one of the kids yelled, "Go get 'em, lady!" I gave them a peace sign as me and the Explorer wandered off in search of our first stops - on some god-forsaken street named Leather Chaps Drive. Yes, really.

I cranked up Sheryl Crowe on the boom box and hit “There goes the Neighborhood” at max volume as I drove the deserted suburban streets on the wrong side, flinging out a wrapped DEX for each stop that hopefully would land somewhere in the vicinity of the recipient’s mailbox. The trick was to never bring the Explorer to a stop since it had a stick and the constant shifting plus the weight would render the clutch DOA before I ever even escaped Leather Chaps Drive, never mind the god forsaken new sub-division a thousand miles out on the former eastern plains.

(to be continued)