on showing up to deliver

and facing a four legged piss missile

People have asked me Jimmy, how do you do it? How do you show up and write every day? You gotta just be some sort of freak to keep coming up with stuff.

In reality?

I’ve got nothing to offer the world.

I’m spending twelve hours per day in a big metal delivery van.

It rattles and vibrates and is filled with drafts.

Going slow around town, the damn thing manages to heat up.

The entire process is grinding me down. It takes effort just to ride in the damn thing.

Then there’s all of the lifting and delivering part.

It’s not all mechanical deliveries though.

Me and Ricky have laughs. We tell a lot of jokes and talk a lot of shit about the people we serve.

Over the course of a day, I come up with funny ideas and stories to tell, but by the end of the day, I’m ground down and spent. There’s nothing left.

We delivery people can be pretty petty.

Steps aren’t shoveled?

I’m not walking up them. You can pick up your shit at the bottom of the stairs. Enjoy putting your boots on arsehole - and while you’re at it? Clear your steps.

And if you live way up on a hill and you want to be precious about where your package is left?

Ya might want to be kind, otherwise the make up you ordered might end up with a photo of your garbage bin noted as the delivery location.

Or the jokes we’re making about stuffing someone’s big, soggy box.

Then?

Then there’s all the material about the delivery person vs their sworn enemies - dogs.

I love dogs, but there are some who, much like people, are complete arseholes who want to rip your face off with their teeth.

As a preview, there was one delivery where I was afraid that a vicious doberman that I thought was going to explode through the glass on the door of the rotting mobile home I was delivering to.

Don’t worry about me though dear reader. At that location I saw a shovel. If the dog attacked, I planned on hitting it with the shovel until it stopped moving.

The shovel could then be used to the same end if the dog owner was pissed that I killed their dog.

Then?

Both the irresponsible dog owner and their four legged piss missile could be strategically relocated into the same hole. I am working for a logistic company, so the efficiency checks out.

And given how nasty that dog was, I suspect that neither they nor their owner would be missed.

But if I didn’t write?

I’d miss it.

If this darn newsletter hadn’t been going for so long, I’d have given up two weeks ago.

But that’s how streaks work.

Sure, this one hasn’t been perfect.

But that’s the point.

But giving up and taking a month off?

That’s not an option.

That would ruin the streak.

So, how do I manage to show up everyday and write?

I just do.

I bring my best.

And there are days where “my best” is truly mediocre.

But that’s ok.

Because as long as I live and breathe?

Tomorrow is another day and another chance.

And maybe?

Maybe then I’ll deliver the goods.

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