Tales from the Route:
Pool Poops and Dumpster Gold
It all started with a floating turd.
We were at Ricky’s place, chilling in the pool like we usually did when it was too hot to breathe. Ricky had this friend—Travis—who was always just a little too relaxed. That day, he was bobbing around in the shallow end when suddenly, this brown log rose to the surface like some kind of cursed sea treasure. Everyone froze. Then, chaos.
Screams. Splashes. Half-empty soda cans flying. I think Kevin dropped his Slim Jim in the panic. We all jumped out of the water like it was boiling acid. Travis laughed, like it was the highlight of his day. No remorse. That was Travis in a nutshell.
After that, we stuck to the rec room. The place had a few old arcade machines, some sad plastic chairs, and—most importantly—a pool table. That table was sacred. At least, it used to be.
The billiard balls were too tempting for guys like Josh. One day, he picked up the cue ball, weighed it in his hand like it was a grenade, and without a word, wham—right into the drywall. Left a perfect dent. It was beautiful in a terrible way. A few more throws and we had a crater going. That was the end of our rec room privileges. Officially “banned for life.”
After that, we started being more selective about who we brought on the paper route. No more Travis, definitely no more Josh.
The route itself wasn’t half bad—at least when the weather held. We’d start from the top of the hill and wind our way down through the neighborhood. The best part came at the bottom, near the shopping center. That’s where the real treasure hunting began.
Dumpster diving was part of the fun. These weren’t just trash bins—they were like mystery boxes. Apartment dumpsters held everything from broken microwaves to forgotten skateboards. And yeah, occasionally, we'd score a Playboy or a Penthouse. Back then, that was like finding buried treasure. No internet. No smartphones. Just glossy pages and teenage awe.
Behind the shops was even better. I swear, some employees must’ve tossed out stuff on purpose just to grab it later—brand-new boxes of toys, unopened snacks, even cassette tapes still in shrink wrap. It was like Christmas, if Christmas smelled like stale bread and burnt coffee filters.
We’d grab a soda or an ice cream with whatever change we had, then begin the trek back up the hill. That hill was murder. Especially with a full paper sack weighing down your shoulder like a bag of bricks. Still, we made it.
Rainy days? They were brutal. Every single paper had to be wrapped in plastic, one at a time. I’d wear a garbage bag with holes cut out for my arms and still end up soaked like a drowned rat. Saturday and Sunday were even worse. Papers had to be delivered before dawn. I’d wake up to the sound of a truck dropping off a bundle so big it looked like it could crush a small car. By five a.m., I was stuffing them into plastic, hands numb, dreaming of being literally anywhere else.
But for all the crap we dealt with—literal and otherwise—there was something cool about those days. We were a pack of screwups with nowhere else to be. We didn’t have smartphones, didn’t need Wi-Fi, and our biggest thrill was whether the next dumpster held gold or garbage.
Looking back now, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Except maybe not swimming with Travis.