So here I am, fourteen, and this is about the time of year where stores and restaraunts start offering jobs to the youth. I'm now legally allowed to work part-time. As I search for such a job, I have to consider whether or not to give up the newspaper route that I have painstakingly stuck to since I was only a single decade old. My newspaper route is not completely my own and is a pretty pathetic excuse for a paper route. I basically deliver the alternate paper, which means I deliver once a week whenever I want on Tuesday or Wednesday. Once a month I've got to take up what is known as 'saturation' where I have to deliver little coupon packets to every house on my route. Oh yes, and I have my sister who shares this job with me, which means we splits the profit.

Sounds easy, doesn't it?

Now, to those who are full-time, early morning newspaper boys, I salute you, as you are much more willing and persevering than I. However, this job is much more difficult than it appears. Rather than throwing the paper at the step, we must hang it on the door. Also, we don't have a lot of loyal newspaper receivers on our route. We have about 216 papers on our route, about 170 of which receive the regular paper. So yeah, it's not fun. And while early-morning newspaper boys have to put up with ice and darkness, I have to put up with slush, blaring heat, and rain. Oh yes, and let's not forget the sadistic dogs that enjoy running me down.

Not to mention, I don't get paid once a week. I get paid biweekly, the likes of which I have to split with my sister. The fruits of my labor usually result in about $20-$30 (depends on if it's saturation or not). Yeah, people at McDonalds make more money in three days than I do.

As con-filled as this sounds, there are some perks. I don't have to put up with a lot of thing part-timers do:

• Shifts
• Set schedule
• Overtime
• Unexpected changes in schedule
• Ornery co-workers

Also, the deal is that we also get our satellite network 50% off. Pretty sweet.

However, that doesn't cut out all the cons.

So now we just have to think over my route experiences. Let's thing back to my very first route when I worked substitution duty...

I've been running the streets, finally getting the hang of slinging the bags onto the knobs. At this point, I was getting comfortable, and the weather was perfect. The job felt like a breeze and I thought for sure this was easy money.

Then...I met my first dog.

Luckily, I was too tired at this point to run up to the door, so I start walking up the driveway. The garage door was open, but I thought nothing of it. I traipsed up to the walkway that led to the door when I heard a rumbling from the garage. There was a clinking of metal and I saw a golden blur shoot out from the garage. I leapt backwards, feeling something slam into the tip of my shoe. I looked up and saw a dog, fighting against his stretched chain, to get at me. I ran for my life as it snarled at me, making it so that I never looked at an open garage door without careful examination ever again.

So much for easy money.

That was one of many dogs to cause me stress. Luckily, that's the closest I've ever come to being bitten. I have been nipped by a small puppy, but it was nothing. And believe it or not, cats are much worse. For some reason, the cats are especially bold on my route. I have been scratched, pounced on, and tripped.

Animals are always a problem on a route. I've been attacked by a kamikaze squirrel (I swear, it was aiming for my head when it jumped out of that tree), lunged at by dogs, scratched by cats, tripped by bunnies, and even scratched by a very large lizard. Animals are the most hazardous part of the job.

People aren't completely innocent, though.

I've delivered to many queer people. One old man I delivered to seemed a little too happy and a little too smelly to be in his right state of mind when I handed him the paper. I've been severely creeped out by a number of shady characters I've delivered to. Some people are simply ornery, and then there are people who are too nice and want to have a conversation with you while your mother's burning gasoline at the end of the street.

There were also the instants where my mother's car broke down, one of the papers caught on fire from a lit tiki torch, my sister broke a flower pot, and I've been yelled at for hitting an attacking cat with a paper.

I would say more, but I have a deadline for my sleep tonight.

Basically, I would think that these kind of things would throw me off, but I think these kind of things have really helped me in developing as a person (whether you find defending yourself a cat and facing down a dog very life-changing or not).

So I don't know.

We'll just have to see.

Reminiscently,

Dr. Bionicle