Substitute Paper People

Some friends of ours have a paper route delivering the free weekly paper.  They went on vacation and asked us to substitute for them.  They earn 40 dollars per month delivering the papers and offered to pay the kids what they would earn doing the papers:  10 dollars.  I asked my kids if they wanted to do it:

Ian:  YES,
Adele: YES,
Elise: YES,
Emilia:  "If there are 4 of us doing it then we will have to split the money 4 ways. I don't think it is worth it to do all that work for only $2.50.  (And of course does mom get paid?  No.  Nice arrangement.)

They did agree that they wanted to do it and so we picked up the papers the night before, folded them and put them in the bags.  They were thinkin this was pretty easy, and that a paper route might be something that they would be interested in getting.  We loaded up the papers the next morning, got our water bottles and went to work!  We split up the route and the big girls went one way and I took Adele and Ian the other way.  We trudged up and down the streets, faithfully putting the papers on the porch like we were told.  Except for that ONE that Emilia threw on the roof.  (Oops.)  Oh, and except for the ones Elise was too tired to put on the porches and just just left on the lawns.  We ran from big dogs that were trying to eat us, or at least sniff us to death and we WALKED really far (especially for the ones with the shortest legs).  I noticed on the way back that some of the houses had 2 papers.  (WHAT???) and found out that Elise had a couple of extra papers in her bag that she wanted to get rid of so she just gave some of the houses another one.  On their lawns.  Ian and I had already been down that street and had gotten those houses.  So, of course, we had to get out and pick UP the papers.  And try to figure out why the heck we still had over 20 papers when we thought we were done at the end of the route.  We finally figured out that we had missed a street.  I have to make a note in Elise's defense, the previous week Emilia, Ian and I had gone on the route with our friends to see what we needed to do.  Elise missed the "paper route instruction inservice" so she was a little unaware of some of the expectations.  And I guess I just took it for granted that if a paper ended up on the roof the thrower would at least leave another one on the porch.  Nope.  Hopefully our friends won't get fired after the um, amateur job we did delivering the papers.  And I asked my kids after we were done with the papers if they still wanted a paper route of their own.  Nope. Good.  Neither do I.