Vector 6

I got a job.  Sort of.  I search Craigslist every single day for a new job and I clicked on "gigs" yesterday morning.  There it was:

       Flyer Delivery-This Week
We need 12 Delivery Persons for This week.
Delivering advertising information door to door in Little Rock. No selling. Just put the information on                                  the door and go to the next house. Wear your Ipod, enjoy the weather, and get paid ! You must be physically able to walk 3+ miles per shift.

Choose your Day(s) and Shift(s)"

Well I can do that.

I woke up at 0730 (we had to meet at 0800) and check the weather, supposed to be cool today so I put on my only pair of jeans, a white long sleeve t-shirt and a pair of sneakers.  My sister drove me to meet the group at the back of the Best Buy parking lot over in West Little Rock.  We're running a little bit late but I was thinking about backing out since we left my apartment so I wasn't terribly concerned.  Five minutes late, we spot the group in the parking lot...ohhh great.

My sister pulls up to the group and we watch them for a few minutes before she talks me into walking over to them.  We're all gathered around the boss' Volvo...me, three people with Eastern European accents (rare in the South), a huge redneck who brought his African American friend in his enormous truck, one of my sister's friends from church (nice guy), the diva, and a legit cowboy in his 50s who has seen his fair share of Marlboros.

The big redneck takes his place as "leader" of the group and starts asking questions about the map taped to the Volvo with different sections labeled V1-V7.  "So uh, how do you decide who gets which vector?"

My brain skips back to Conceptual Physics ("Physics without so much math so it's easier for people with your abilities to understand."-Sister Joan) in 10th grade.  Pretty sure vector is a measurement of quantity. I looked it up, it is "a quantity possessing both magnitude and direction." (Thanks, Dictionary.com)  I love being right.  Back to the story.


"Well I just hand them out to whoever."-Boss
So the job is to hang these little booklets on front doors in a good neighborhood.  The book is just advertisements and a few coupons...all local businesses.  I can deal with that.  We get paid 10 cents for each booklet we hand out.  Cool, 10 houses,  one dollar.  Got it.


The map is labeled with arrows in red or blue so as to distinguish different routes.  Each route has an estimate of how many houses written under the arrows.  300, 330, 220, 450...I was disappointed when I got Vector 6..."Only 300?  Crap, I would rather do 450 so I can make a little bit more money today," I thought.  Eh something is better than nothing so I kept my mouth shut.  The Eastern Europeans are going to a separate neighborhood but we all have to wait for the shift supervisors to get there with the bags.  Soo..we wait.  A few people leave to get breakfast, I return to my sister's car to discuss what I've gotten myself into. 


Three white 90s model Crown Victorias roll up and the passengers get out with black duffel bags that they carry over to the Volvo.  I walk over to collect my bags, we have to get our shift supervisor's number before we leave so we can call her if we need more bags or if we get in some sort of trouble.  She has to ask one of the guys what her number is..her phone has recently been stolen.  Whatever, I'm ready to make some moneyyy.  Finally.


Heather takes me to my starting point, it's a really nice neighborhood so I'm ready to go.  My booklets are loaded into a backpack that our cat peed on a few years ago but it's all I had and surely the smell would be gone by now..right?  Wrong.  As soon as I put it on, the weight of 300 booklets brings it closer to me...closer to my face...I smell it.  It's fine...I'll walk fast and the smell will just trail behind me. 


To be continued...