Today, rising at 5am, bringing in the newspapers and magazines, sorting the newsrounds and opening the shop for 6am. I have been trying to shake off a cold for what seems like forever. Yesterday, late evening, a customer was telling my mother how running a newsagents will kill you, just as I wandered into earshot. “Thanks for that!” I replied in my cheery demeanour. The fellow had actually worked in our shop many years previously and had been involved in newsagency for a while. “The stress will kill you,” he said as he left. And again I thanked him.
So this morning I had my breakfast at about 6.30am, the shopwork covered by my two staff. Porridge was on the menu and as I felt the last drops of the oaky conglomeration sliding down my digestive track, I felt a familiar pain. It was the stomach cramps. Wowser, these were stronger and more painful than ever before. I quickly took some peppermint oil tablets and a couple of ibuprofen and retreated to back, curling myself in a foetal position to numb the waves of gripping pain. I managed to drift into a sleep and had a fever dream where someone came into the shop and told me that the consensus of the village was that they wanted us to leave town. I grabbed said dream man by the neck and ejected him without ceremony.
I am thinking that maybe these stomach cramps are linked to stress, perhaps? The worst period of them was when I had a proper full-time and was particularly miserable. Coincidence maybe? Well I am currently worrying about the THOUSANDS of POUNDS that are owed to me by the village. You see, around these parts it seems perfectly natural for people to receive their newspaper delivery but not pay for it.
“But I demand a reminder, because I need to know how much I owe you,” they bleat.
They got a reminder at the beginning of the week when I sent out bills to every customer who hadn’t paid since the 1 October. I included a nice letter explaining how they could pay and that if they didn’t settle up in a timely manner it might affect their newspaper delivery. What else could I do. Some folks owe over £50 on their newspaper bill… Some folk didn’t like this last sentence, this threat, if you will. But how else can you encourage someone to pay what they owe. If they haven’t paid in nearly eight weeks maybe I should just let them have the papers for free? Anyway, I watch as the cash comes in dribs and drabs. Next week, a big bill needs to be paid and the money I am owed will go someway to pay it.
And so I continue to worry and wonder if I have done the right thing by buying into this business. So maybe it wasn’t that big a surprise that I had bad stomach cramps this morning. Somehow I need to learn not to worry and love my debt.
As the guy in the shop said: “Stay in this business for too long and it will kill you…”

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