My Boss Screamed at Me Tonight

Buddy of mine drives a route for a snacks supplier, up five mornings a week at 4 for coffee, cigarette and, on way rare occasions when it arrives early enough, his morning paper. He says that, when he hits the highway by 5, it's bumper to bumper in his city. Got to think that the increasingly early rush hour is eroding newspaper customer base. Newspaper already seems old when it hits your doorstep, so if you have to wait until lunch or evening to read it, it's about as timely as a history textbook by then.

 

What is this morning you're all speaking of? I thought the sun was conjured up by a tribal peyote ritual somewhere in the Amazon, because when I wake up, it's there, usually pretty high in the sky too. I know not of this morning.

Oh wait ... midnight to 3:30 a.m.? Gotcha.

 

If I'm ever up between 6 and 9 a.m., it's with a lot of uneasiness. It feels surreal, and chances are it's for some reason I don't enjoy, like a doctor's appointment.

 

I covered a sentencing hearing on Tuesday. I was on the road at a time of the morning that's even earlier than I usually stumble out of bed. It was the first time I got up at 6 a.m. for work since before I started my current gig.

 

I'll go as far as to say if I'm driving and the sky's turning from dark to light ... I'm somewhat freaked.

 

I once came home from karaoke so late that the morning paper was in the driveway when I got home.

My folks were surprised to see the paper waiting for them downstairs when they got up.

 

I once had an editor scream at me in the newsroom, in front of everyone. She wasn't my boss or anything, but was in charge of another section, and we all rotated stories to run on her front every few weeks. Anyhoo, I was young, green and ticked about it, and it being a union shop, asked our union guy if there was any recourse.

He looked at me and, in his grizzled veteran style, said, "Son, there's no rule against being an asshole."

 

So you'll run a boxscore from the day before in the next day's paper? Seems like old news and wasted space to me.

 

That's all our first run is...runbacks from the night before and features.

 

what?

 

If I want an MLB boxscore from Monday night, I'm not going to wait until Wednesday morning to find it in the paper.

 

That's pretty common newspaper practice, Ryan.