ah, a fan letter from my paper carrier

[cellio]

I can't make this stuff up. Really.

I've been trying for a long time to get the newspaper carrier to fling the paper onto the porch, rather than into the bushes, into the street (that's not even trying), into incipient or actual puddles, etc. Recently he's been mostly hitting the sidewalk or steps, but when it rains the paper still gets soggy, 'cause those little plastic bags can only do so much. And in the winter finding it under the snow can be a challenge.

Wednesday it rained and I called for a replacement paper, explaining (again) that a paper on the porch would have been non-soggy, and is what I requested. Thursday my paper came with an annotation:

Let us look past the surface of this literary offering and cut straight to the chase.

Dear Paper Carrier,

You didn't give me your name or phone number, so I've had to respond through your district manager. I hope that's ok.

You objected to my failure to provide you a parking space in front of my house. I would like to note several things:

1. I park in my garage. Your attempt to guilt me into moving my car for your convenience was misguided.

2. I don't know who parks in front of my house. Actually, we've been wondering that for years (the red jeep is particularly puzzling), but that's beside the point. It's a public street. That means people park on it sometimes. They're allowed to; the city says so.

3. How exactly do you think I can provide you with a parking space? What do you want, a sign that says "no parking - reserved for lazy Tribune-Review guy"? I don't think your employer's public-relations department would like that very much.

4. So park a couple spots up if you have to. I've never seen the street completely full in the morning. You have other deliveries on this street; get off your butt and walk. And yes, I asked the dispatch folks if my carrier has physical limitations that interfere with delivery to my porch; you're perfectly capable of fulfilling my request according to them.

5. The porch is approximately 20 feet wide and about 30 feet back from the street. C'mon, even I can hit that, and I throw like a girl. Sheesh.

No, I didn't actually send it. I did phone in a complaint.

Comments

Re: Throwing like a girl

[glenbarnett.livejournal.com]

I agree with you apart from the "taught" thing. I was never taught to throw, and I guess many of the boys I grew up with weren't either.

When I was little, I just watched the kids who could throw, and practised until I could throw okay too.

But many girls can sure learn to throw, if they have a mind to, and someone to learn from, which indicates a general lack of a structural physical impediment.

In response to a couple of other posters - in my experience, more girls throw overarm than underarm, but don't generally do it in a mechanically effective way. The elbow seems to come into it too much, the arm is often too high - meaning that they tend to throw by contracting the triceps. The rest of the body needs to come in - power needs to come from the shoulder, chest and back acting in concert, from moving the bodyweight apropriately, and the arm "snap" - so you throw across your chest, not away from it (so if you want to throw hard, you step toward your target with your off foot, rathen than stand square on).