Zeitungsverweigerer - German word for a person actively refusing the receipt of free newspapers with adverts by registering at the newspaper provider.

Horace, aged 63, had recently established the habit of watching people from his window. He took one of the chairs from the dining table in the living room and placed it in front of one of the larger windows so he could better observe what was going on inside. Horace could easily have gone outside to pursue his newly found hobby there, for there were plenty of places in the park and in town where people could just sit and watch strangers walk by.

However, he seemed to be quite pleased with the distance between him and the other people in the world. Horace had just retired from his position as a head of Quality Assurance for the main manufacturer of silent vacuum cleaners in his area and he was so used to handle all his communication through the phone or e-mail. He was not used to talking to someone or being near someone, except for his wife.

“Why don’t you do something else for once?” Wilma, his wife of 40 years, tried her best to encourage him to use his newly won freedom and free time for something else than observing the life of others, but to no avail so far. At least she had managed to get him put his binoculars away after the neighbour from the house in front of them rang their bell and stated she was going to sue if “that” was not going to stop.

“Apologies” mumbled Horace and walked back into the house and let his wife do the extended version of the talk.

(Some miles away in a newspaper distribution center)

“Oh and Paul, something else!” Paul turned around. He did not like the commanding tone of this young guy but he swallowed a nasty answer because this was his first day at this post-retirement side job and he wanted to keep it in order not to ride on the unstoppable train of boredom.

“Yes”, Paul replied instead, checking his right pocket for the car keys.

“Please take notice of the addresses which do not like to receive the paper, ok? There have been some, uh, incidents in the last few months and our main wish is to avoid them happening again!”

Mark, the young guy, poked the writing pad with his pen as to put more emphasis in his words. “I will”. Paul was not a man of big words, but he knew instructions were part of every job, no matter what it was really about.

The day started out really quiet, he hoped that he would get to distribute the papers without any problems and to breathe some fresh air. The entire car smelled of printing paint on soft paper.

(Meanwhile at 25 Hollowside Drive)

“You know Wilma, if I catch one of those guys again putting some adverts into my letterbox, I will tell them what to expect for crossing that line!”

Horace had been watching the driveway carefully. His letterbox was next to three others and while the others did not mind receiving free newspapers with a lot of adverts, Horace did not want any piece of such kind of paper to take up any space in there.

“Horace, calm down, please. There are always new guys distributing the papers, and you can’t expect them to not make any mistakes when they start their jobs.”

One of the new guys actually faced (he had to) Horace appearing on the driveway with a bucket of cold water (and if it had been just from the tap it would not have been Horace). It was icy water with some half melted pieces of ice swimming in it. Before the poor (maybe 20 year old) guy could listen to the complaint and take the paper out again, he was blessed with a rather cold shower from Horace’s bucket.

“I am prepared, Wilma, that is all I say. I registered with them. I do not want any more of their shitty papers, and they should take better note of their files. THAT is real service to the customer, or to the non-customer, in my case.”

A car stopped in front of the house. Paul got out of it and looked at his list and then looked at the driveway. Three letterboxes but two newspapers to be tucked into them. There was a note for this address on his pad that one of the residents did not want to receive the newspaper. The names on the letterboxes though were bleached from the sun and rain and he could not really figure out the correct one.

Just as he spread a hand with one newspaper in it to put it into box number one, a window opened with a light, screechy sound. A man, almost certainly in his sixties, put his head out and yelled: “Read your damn instructions for once, it is known what happens to people not following them!”

Paul turned around. The voice of this man sounded like he had been talking a lot, but not smoking or drinking. “I am sorry sir, but which one is your letterbox?” Paul figured that some simple and plain question would solve the situation.

“I am going to show you!” Horace closed the window, made his way to the kitchen equipped with a bucket, where he opened the freezer, then took out a lot of ice and filled the bucket with some cold water.

“Horace, please!” Wilma tried to build a connection she would have assumed would work to talk some sense into her now energized husband, but it did not work.

Horace, on the driveway, having trouble carrying that bucket because it was way too full this time, stopped in front of Paul.

Paul, still the newspaper in his hand, looked at him in a quite different way than the previous guy.

“You must be very bored, are you?”

Horace took a deep breath and lifted his arms to put that bucket where it belonged, over the heads of people who did not read their papers and knew what quality customer service was. Then something inside him put down the bucket slowly.

“Well, I am used to a little more action than the one I get here, to be honest”.
Horace was a little out of breath. Paul smiled. He did not smile often, but when he did, it was an honest, decisive act.

“Then take this. I could use some help here.” Paul stuffed the newspaper into Horaces arms before he put the other ones into the two mailboxes that apparently had names on them if you looked closer.

That day was the first one any of that papers made its way through Horaces and Wilmas front door to their kitchen table.