Super Team At Work Again

Sights & Sounds of Burnside

(as seen by four poor yellow-page deliverers)

Once more, i was up at the crack of dawn to deliver a phonebooks - this time, the wonderful Yellow Pages! I tell you, when you come home and feel the warm glow that comes from seeing a little yellow bundle of joy placed neatly on the hinge-side of your doorstep, take a moment to think of the men and women who risked their lives (ok, at least gave up their saturdays) to make your lives just that little but easier.

9.30 saw a group of about 10 people dedicated to your making your telephone experiences so much easier arrive at the Burnside pool carpark. Fifteen minutes later, Kate and i arrived, running ever so slightly behind schedule due to a veeeery late nite (advice: don't stay up until 2am watching 'Will & Grace' and having a midnight snack AFTER having had people round to watch scary movies if you plan to deliver phonebooks the next morning :P). Anyway, once we were all there, our super-team of delivery people (plus Kate, our fledgling) piled into our wonder-van and took off into the depths of Burnside.

Trolleys (Sat Trucks??) loaded to the point that we could barely lift them, Kate and i took the left side of our first street, Josh and Brad the right. Then began the now-familiar routine: push trolley to a driveway, rip out a book, run it to the door, catch up with the trolley pusher, rip out a book, run it up to the door, catch up with the trolley pusher, rip out a book... you get the idea. Don't think our job is boring though! Delivering is anything but monotonous; our routine is interspersed with some graceful trolley-dancing across roads (that baby moved like it was on ice), a few death-defying trolley-tricks (none of which resulted in a book spillage, i promise!) and the general taunting that is expected in a team of people as adept at their job as we are (name calling, mocking- the usual).

On our adventure, we saw some interesting things - as one might expect a group of super-deliveres to do. First was the mini-gate; a charming little villa on our route was adorned with a fence and gate, as is the norm... however, this gate and fence combo was a whopping 30cms high! Hmm... we wondered the point of it - was it truly expected to keep people out? Then came the house of dwarves; an overgrown block that had a single entrance - in the form of a low lying tunnel of branches. To get to the front door, one would have to crouch and scuttle through, with no way of knowing what surprises awaited them on the other side... Needless to say, Kate and i bagged the book and left it at the gate. We encountered a giant dog - about 5ft tall when standing on it's back legs! - which led to one of our crew refusing to enter the vicinity and had an unfortunate incident involving our chasing a few dozen plastic bags down Seaforth Ave.

Most interesting of all was not exciting or scary but definately worrying - upon approaching the door of 21 Lerwick Avenue, we were greeted by the sight of a greying White Pages, from our delivery a few weeks ago. Curiosity aroused, we threw our gazes around the lawn, spotting an abundance of mail and the last three weeks worth of newspapers... A glance through the window revealed croched rugs reserved for old people on the chairs and dust galore covering the general dissaray of the front room. Imagination kicking into over-drive, i immediately assumed the worst; the an elderly woman was lying dead on the floor inside, with no relatives to find her. Distressed, i infomed Kate of my worries and was relieved to discover she saw my point. We knocked in the door and called out, getting no answer. No knowing how to continue, we had no choice but to leave... feeling awful at the thought that we could be leaving a poor old woman on the floor... We quieried our team as to what we should do - and were informed that we were being ridiculous and that there was surely another explanation, like the resident had gone on holiday. Right. Not cancelling their papers, organising someone to collect their mail or sweept the path... but there was little we could do. We moved on, Kate and i quiet with worry... We appeal to you all with passionate cires - should you know the resident of this house, please check on them!!!

We forced our worry out of our minds, needing to focus on the important task at hand. We wound our way around the streets, occasionally meeting up with our controller-in-chief (aka Ian) to re-load. Then, once again on our way, we continued our mission to bring telephone numbers to the people of the Burnside area. After a brief stop for Kate and i to trade shoes (yes, shoes) and a phone call to my mother in which i successfully got out of a family lunch, we continued on our way.

Three hours later and 500 phonebooks lighter, we returned to the park. Unloading our few remaining books (no, it was NOT amusing to attempt to throw the books onto the head of a team member!), we rewarded ourselves with an energy-boosting chockie milk and pasty... before heading back to get the cars - in the process fulfilling our natural super-team desire for excitement and danger, nearly crashing into an old woman in a car at the stupid two-lane roundabout. No, it was not amusing, no, it wasn't on purpose, no, the quality of driving isn't usually that bad!

Mission completed, we headed home, already mentally preparing for our return to our important tasks next saturday.

All in a day's work.

No book to heavy, no road to steep, no rain too wet for our team of super-deliverers!

Until next time...