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An example: why being a reporter blows ...................Paul Ryan
I didn't know the location of the training site, so I planned on following the firefighters. I decided the night before that I would pretend to be a secret agent tailing a spy. Such ridiculous delusions are necessary when the most exciting activity of your week is a phone call from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (They weren't angry with me for anything; they just wanted a donation). The plan was set. Earlier in the week, the firefighting instructor had told me the training would begin at 8 a.m. sharp. I woke up at 6:30 and was able to drag myself out to the town, unshowered, by 7:50. I talked with some of the firefighters for a few minutes, until one of them asked why I had shown up for the classroom session. When the instructor arrived a few minutes later, he informed me that the exercise would take place "around 10:30, 11 at the latest." Judging by his last guess, I feared the exercise could take place anytime between this afternoon and the next passing of Haley's Comet. Was I upset about getting up early on a Saturday for nothing? Let's just say I debated the joy of a prison-free life against the pure bliss of kicking the instructor in the groin hard enough to require testicle retrieval. So I drove 30 miles back to my apartment, did nothing for two hours (It's physically impossible to have fun when you know you have to go to work in a few hours), and drove back again. I arrived at the fire station around 10:20, where I waited an hour and a half for the firefighters to finally come out of the building. Luckily, I brought a book just in case. I was reading this book about twenty minutes before the firefighters walked outside, when I heard a sharp tapping on my car window. A teenage girl stood beside my car, crossing her arms in disapproval. Her hideous braces were matched in size only by the horrendous zits on her forehead. "What are you doing?" she asked in a brutally sarcastic tone. I muffled my urge to slap her, for fear I'd cut my hands on her braces. "I'm waiting for the fire department", I said. She rolled her eyes and walked away before I could say another word. I tried to shout a more detailed explanation, but she kept walking, shouting back "Okay, whatever". Who was this girl to silence me? I had committed no crime. Here I was, quietly reading a book - a pastime that is apparently unheard of in these parts - and this slobbering acne scar of a woman condemned me without even allowing me to explain myself. It's not like I was peering inside her house with binoculars or honking my horn to the rhythm of unpopular Broadway showtunes. I was just reading a book. Around noon, the firefighters walked out of the building and got into their cars. I "tailed" them, only to find they were going to the local "Kwik Trip" station to buy sandwiches before heading back to the fire station for more classroom training. I thought of confronting the instructor and beating him in the head with a tire iron, but I decided it would be more fun to park outside the zit woman's house and read my book. Surely, rubbing my literacy in her face a second time would anger her to no ends. Half an hour later, the firefighters finally left for the training exercise. The event turned out to be excruciatingly dull, and I hated the instructor more with every moment. At the end of the exercise, around 4 p.m., he apologized for telling me the wrong time. I produced an unenthusiastic smile, swallowed the massive loogie I had been saving for the windshield of his car, and thanked him for allowing me to tag along. If he hadn't been carrying a large metal claw used during the exercise to force open car doors, I might have told him how I really felt.
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Saturday was supposed to be an easy day. I had to drive to a town 30 miles away, and write an article about firemen completing a training exercise. They were going to practice using the jaws of life on a car, so I figured it would be pretty cool.
