The Honk of Humiliation

Most people my age have jobs. Friends of mine work at local fast food chains and supermarkets. I am a paperboy.

I am the man assigned with the glorious task of stocking those free newspapers you see in the boxes located next to bus-stops.

To the ordinary person, the job would seem like a piece of cake. Try to tell me that when you’re barreling down the highway with a psychopath hell-bent on delivering those papers in the fastest way possible.
My boss is a man named Roger Andersen. He is 75 years old and has apparently stopped taking his medications.
He wants to deliver as many papers as he can before he dies, and apparently doesn’t seem to care I die along with him.

Saying that he has road-rage is an understatement. When you honk at a school bus full of Kindergarteners because they’re not going fast enough, you do not simply have road-rage.

The deal is this; he drives his 1987 Chevy Cavalier Station Wagon (with me in it) around to various locations in urban neighborhoods. Whenever we get to a “stop”, I am supposed to get out of the car, drop papers in the specified area, and bring back last week’s left-overs.

Time is of the essence and there is no room for error. You don’t want to screw up, for then you might face, “The Honk of Humiliation”.
Nothing is worse than the sound of it. Not even the Ashlee Simpson CD instills the sense of sheer terror that the “honk” does.

Do anything slightly different from the way Roger intends and he will beep his car-horn as loudly as possible. And you better find out what you did wrong as fast as possible, or he’ll do it again.

The sadistic bastard doesn’t even roll down his window and carefully explain what you did wrong. He just honks the horn. Sometimes you realize your mistake and correct yourself. Other times you just sit there until he gets out of the car and tries to hit you.

The horn induces the worst feelings you can experience. It’s a healthy mixture of the feelings of rejection, humiliation, pain, and castration. Hearing the sound makes you want to kill yourself, and not “melodramatic teen suicide” kill yourself, I mean “Go to Home Depot, buy a chainsaw, and chop your head off” kill yourself.

He has no threshold for human feelings. He simply does not care. He has done this in front of Grocery stores, malls, and the occasional Wal-mart. The more people around me, the more likely he is to do it.

When you return to the Cavalier after the incident of humiliation, prepare to be yelled at. Once when I got back to the car, he explained what I did wrong. My shoe was untied. How sweet of him.

Although I believe I oversold the whole “honk” thing, that isn’t necessarily the worst part of working with him.

He is blind. Well, not fully blind or anything, just blind enough to make your life flash before your eyes.

Another one of your prestigious duties is to be both his side and rear-view mirrors.

True Story:

We were speeding down a crowded intersection as usual when we reach a red-light.
All of a sudden, he asks, “What’s coming the other way?”
“Uh, I don’t know...?” I reply
“WHAT THE FUCK IS COMING THE OTHER WAY?” he yells with a sense of urgency.
I then realize that he wants to make a left turn and intends for me to turn around and look out the window.
I look to the right and see a huge truck. I then sink to the bottom of my seat.
“Roger, it’s a huge truck, please don’t make this turn... ” I plead.
“Fuck that”, he retorts.

While working with him, we’ve been pulled over by the cops a grand total of 7 times. And every time the old coot is able to talk himself out of a ticket. While on the other hand, I received a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt (which he forbids me to wear in order to save precious time).

The backdrop sounds of this hellish experience take an all too un-coincidental form. Rush Limbaugh. Nothing is more pleasant to listen to than an hour-long discussion on why George W. Bush is the reincarnated Jesus Christ.

It’s a terrible job, but at least the end of the day you have a newfound affection for life and are one step closer to affording a new hubcap for your mini-van.