What the Newsagent Said

Nice enough lad all right but his mum needs to fatten him up a bit; he's all out of proportion, all up and no sideways. I had to let him go, I was losing customers by the dozen. Everyday another customer would enter my shop with grief, too noisy in the stairwell, newspaper all crumpled and damaged or the paper was always late. Can't afford that in my business! My father handed this establishment to me and I intend to one day pass it to my son, so I need to be on the ball.

It's all about competition, too many corner shops doing the same thing in this area and I can't afford to be losing the bread and the butter that feeds my kids. Need to be on the ball in this job and this kid was not living up to it. Again, his mum was at fault letting him loose with a daft pair of boots like that. Don't know what she was thinking in that pretty little head of hers, allowing him to make such a fool of himself.

I had to laugh though when he came in that day as if he was battling a strong wind. A weeping willow coming towards me he was! I don't know if his heels had just fallen off, or if his dad was just sick of the boots but the lad looked ridiculous. In this game I can't afford to have the ridiculous, I need efficiency. I mean only the other week the empty shop down the road was taken over by a chain of grocers and he might start selling papers and the last thing I need is somewhere else for my customers to go to. I mean he was daft looking like that, his drain pipe legs lugging them backward lying lumps of leather around like leg irons.

In my business it's all about delivering on-time and quietly. I mean the customers just want to get up in the morning to find their newspaper in the box, not downstairs being peed on by the dog or being read by the next door neighbor who couldn't care less! Mrs. Thomas said she was fed up of her bairn being woken up by the morning cattle stampede, Mr. Johnson never got his paper once.

Here, I mean no harm to the lad! But there are always two sides to any story. The day he left his papers outside and lost the lot was enough for anybody. I spent three hours piecing together those papers, managed to re-sell about half and put the rumpled state of them down to a fault at the printing firm but I still lost out that day. And I remember clearly how he looked on that disastrous day, leaning backwards as that was the only way that he could stand and looking like a right fool he was.

On my way to work this morning I was nearly run over by a milk cart on the loose, heard he was working for the milk man! His mum really needs to fatten him up, feed his brain a bit.

Ieuan Dolby
Author and Webmaster of SeaDolby.com
Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 16th September 2005