I Know Life Isn't Fair. But Does It Have to be *This* Unfair?

Do bad guys really need to win? Do good guys really need to finish last?

For the audio version of this article, read by the author, go here.

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I got my first job in the fifth grade: sharing a paper route with my best friend across the street. It wasn’t a real newspaper — it was a free “community” newspaper, the kind with a couple of non-offensive articles that were mostly an excuse to print a bunch of local ads.

But it was only once a week, so it was an easy gig for a fifth grader, especially splitting the work with a friend.

It was pretty obvious to us that no one was waiting with bated breath for each new edition of this newspaper.

Which is why, after we each took our share of the newpapers, my best friend would take his half and promptly dump them all in the woods.

“No one will ever know or care,” he said.

My friend was probably right, but I still thought what he was doing was wrong. We were being paid to do a job, so it was only fair that we did it.

Plus, I didn’t want to be caught. I was a Good Little Boy. But, well, the publisher knew who delivered what to who, so if anyone complained, it would be my friend’s problem, not mine.

I didn’t judge my friend. In a lot of ways, he was a great best friend for me, pushing me out of my Good Little Boy comfort zone. He also helped me define exactly who I was — finding what lines I wasn’t willing to cross.

I was a “newsie”! Kinda. Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash

Then one day we were informed a customer on our route had complained: a local businessman had advertised in the newspaper, but he hadn’t received his copy.

My best friend and I were called in for a meeting with the publisher.

My friend’s really gonna get it now! I thought. I’m sure glad I’ve been delivering this stupid newspaper all these months.

But at the meeting, the publisher looked right at me and said, “Brent, I’m very disappointed in you. It’s your responsibility to deliver those newspapers — that’s what I’m paying you for.”

At first, I was confused. “Wait,” I said. “It was a house on my half of the route?”

The publisher nodded.

“But I did deliver it!” I protested. “I’ve delivered every newspaper every week for six months now!”

What I couldn’t say was that my best friend who handled the other half of the route hadn’t delivered any newspapers, not since the first week or so. All his newspapers were sitting in a pile in the woods, rotting in the rain.

“Not according to the customer,” the publisher said to me, frowning.

(After the meeting, I went to the customer’s house and found the rogue newspaper. It had blown off his porch into some bushes where it was rotting in the rain now too.)

In that meeting, I was embarrassed and humiliated. I looked at my best friend, pleading with my eyes: Help me out here!

But he just stared back at me, also frowning, like he was disappointed in me too. I mean, what was he going to say? Yeah, I haven’t delivered any newspapers. And it’s not like I could nark on him. What would be the point of that?

So I just sat there and took my lumps. I told the publisher how sorry I was, and I promised I would make absolutely sure that every newspaper got delivered from here on out.

And I did make sure, going so far as to slide every newspaper under the welcome mat so it wouldn’t blow away. Now the route took me twice as long.

But my best friend didn’t change a damn thing. He went on simply dumping his half of the newspapers in the woods, and he never got caught.

Where newspapers — and secrets — rot in the rain. Photo by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash

A few months later, I said I wanted out of the paper route. Eventually, I got out of the friendship too.

Even at age ten, I knew that life wasn’t fair. Some people are born rich, but some are born poor — or disadvantaged in some other way.

But on that day in the fifth grade, I learned a different lesson: sometimes people do the wrong thing and they’re rewarded. And sometimes people do the right thing and they’re punished.

Wait. What? What kind of crazy world was this anyway?