Paper Route Substitutes

John’s Scoutmaster’s family has a newspaper route.  It’s not a big route, but a responsibility nonetheless.  Several weeks ago, the Scoutmaster had asked John and Brock if they could help his wife deliver the newspapers while he and his kids were out of town because she is having problems with her knees.  So, the boys took the papers to the doorsteps while she drove along showing them where to go.  I was surprised how much the boys enjoyed doing this–they both thought it was a lot of fun!

Last week, the daughter of the family called to tell us that the whole family was leaving town and wondered if we could do their route for them.  We had never done it without them, but I told her that if she left us good instructions about when and where to get the papers and which houses were to get them that we could probably figure it out.  So, that is what we did on Friday.  All of the kids were so excited about rolling those silly papers, and, boy, did we get black with ink!  Then we set out with our house list.  We did it kind of like the boys had done it before:  we drove down the street with the list showing them which houses needed the papers and the boys put the papers on the doorsteps.  I am happy to report that when we were finished, we had just the right number of leftover papers and never heard any complaints, so we must have done all right! 

So, is this in our future?!  Who knows!  I do think it is good for kids to learn responsibility.  That being said, our local papers are out for delivery right around the time that we usually eat supper and get ready for our evening activities, so having our own route is something we’d have to think about awhile.  We don’t mind substituting, however, so hopefully we will get asked to do it again!