Newspaper Boy Clean Up

A few days ago I found an amazing sandcastle and had my picture taken by a lady who said she would try to get the photo and story in the local newspaper. I shared a picture and wrote all about it here in an earlier post.

Since then I’ve been looking forward to seeing the weekly newspaper and today is the big day it gets delivered. The sandcastle was such great news that I knew I’d make the front page. My dad however decided that today is the big day that my room will be cleaned, and all because of Lego and marbles. “Otter, stepping on your toys feels as bad as stepping on a rattlesnake!”

I didn’t understand the big deal as I have no trouble running around in my room. Dad sat me on my bed and explained the harsh facts of life. “Otter, when a person reaches their 10th birthday they will suddenly find that stepping on Lego, marbles and little toy cars has become extremely painful. You still have many years ahead to enjoy an ability to happily toddle around in that minefield but for me things are different. Whenever I come in to your room it always feels like I might step into a bear trap! I have suffered enough, you’ll have to do something about this!” I was then told to stay in my room and not come out until the job passes an inspection.

I felt deeply shaken upon hearing what happens to people once they turn 10. That harsh reality-check was just what I needed to get myself straight to work. I spent the morning with my crayons and paper making a sign for my door: “If you’re older than 10 do not enter!” That didn’t take long at all so I was able to spend the rest of the time sitting at my window watching for the newspaper truck. As soon as he delivered the paper I wanted to rush to the end of the driveway to claim my fame. My room hadn’t been inspected so I knew I shouldn’t go outside. All I could do is use my binoculars to look at the rolled up newspaper sitting at the end of the driveway. I became worried that as it sat in the sun the paper would yellow and my fame would fade along with it. I had to rescue it, but needed to be super stealthy.

I climbed out my window and dashed to the end of the driveway. The paper felt warm in my hands and more heavy than usual too. I was sure the paper had been packed with news about the sandcastle. I ripped off the elastic band and unrolled the paper to start reading. It was disappointing to only find boring junk on the front page, but then I thought they probably did that on purpose. I assumed that with this special and important edition of the news the front page was just wrapping paper protecting all the good stuff inside.

I looked on the next page and didn’t find my sandcastle there either. As I walked back up to the house I continued going through every page of the newspaper one-by-one. I was very careful and even looked on both sides of each page but still didn’t see a single story about the sandcastle. By the time I got up to the house I had run out of newspaper to check.

It turns out I didn’t make the front page or any other page in the newspaper. Isn’t that unbelievable? What is up with our media nowadays? I’m thinking I could make up news far better than these guys, and maybe I will. I could be the writer, photographer, editor, publisher and I could be the news too.

As I was just getting ready to start my newspaper company dad came out to remind me that he already had other plans for me. I don’t know how he does it. I am incredibly stealthy and elusive yet he always somehow manages to track me down. He says it’s easy to find me. All he has to do is “follow the trail of destruction”. As you can see he is prone to wild exaggerations! Yet he did manage to track me down again so he is on to me somehow. I think he does it just to give me the hint that I need to up my game.

Dad said that the sign on my door was thoughtful and nicely colored but it’s not enough to pass the inspection. I have to go back to cleaning my room. To make matters worse he apparently noticed some yard clean-up work that needs to be done before dark too. I decided that dad is probably right about cleaning up my room. There is a lot of work to be done and I need to start now to stand any chance of getting it tidy before I turn 10!

Otter