Paperboy Demands You Call Him ‘PaperMAN’ Now

It’s official: Atari’s favorite newspaper-delivery extraordinaire, Paperboy, is pushing 50. And he has something to say. “No one likes getting old,” he told us as we caught up with him on his route (which he still maintains), “but come on. It’s downright disrespectful to call me ‘Paperboy’ when I’ve clearly gone gray and I’m also wearing crocs now.”

Serving Suburbia

While our paper hero still delivers The Daily Sun on the reg, he says he’s definitely been feeling his age. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m fit. But it’s admittedly getting harder to dodge all those self-driving lawn mowers. Oh, and the Grim Reaper.”

And the years of riding his bicycle through chaotic neighborhoods with dogs running wild and people breakdancing in front of their houses for no good reason have taken a mental toll on our PaperMAN. “Some people call me nuts, but I swear there’s a government conspiracy or something. How else do you explain tornadoes spontaneously erupting from sewers? It’s not normal.”

He also thinks that all those construction workers may have something to do with it. “Every day, I go on my paper route, and every day, there’s a guy with his jackhammer, just drilling into the sidewalk. For what? Why is he always drilling? Why isn’t there a big fat hole by now? It doesn’t add up!”

Does PaperMAN have a favorite obstacle he looks forward to every day? “No. I’m not a kid anymore. You’d think, because people love me so much, they’d be a little more considerate. But this job has basically made me lose faith in humanity. I mean, how can someone lose control of their baby stroller every goddamn day? And they call me a boy! This is what’s wrong with society.”

When asked about all those windows he’s broken over the years, he simply shrugged and said, “Hey, they still got their newspapers, right?”

Featured image: Atari Games