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What I was being blamed for, it turned out, was a newspaper strike which made it necessaryto hand-deliver the advertising inserts that normally are included with the Sunday paper. Thecompany had promised our boys $600 for delivering these inserts to 4,000 houses by Sunday morning.
我之所以受到指责，事情原来是这样：由于发生了一起报业工人罢工，通常夹在星期日报纸里的广告插页，必须派人直接投送出去。公司答应给我们的孩子六百美金，任务是将这些广告插页在星期天早晨之前投递到四千户人家去。
"Piece of cake!" our older college son had shouted.
"不费吹灰之力！"我们上大学的大儿子嚷道。
" Six hundred bucks!" His brother had echoed, "And we can do the job in two hours!"
"六百块！"他的弟弟应声道，"我们两个钟点就能干完！"
"Both the Sears and Ward ads are four newspaper-size pages," my wife informed me. "There are thirty-two thousand pages of advertising on our porch. Even as we speak, two big guys are carrying armloads of paper up the walk. What do we do about all this?"
"西尔斯和沃德的广告通常都是报纸那么大的四页，"妻子告诉我说，"现在我们门廊上堆着三万二千页广告。就在我们说话的当儿，两个大个子正各抱着一大捆广告走过来。这么多广告，我们可怎么办？"
"Just tell the boys to get busy," I instructed. "They're college men. They'll do what they have to do."
"你让孩子们快干，"我指示说。"他们都是大学生了。他们自己的事得由他们自己去做。"
At noon the following day I returned to the hotel and found an urgent message to telephonemy wife. Her voice was unnaturally high and quavering. There had been several more truckloads of ad inserts. "They're for department stores, dime stores, drugstores, grocery stores, auto stores and so on. Some are whole magazine sections. We have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of pages of advertising here! They are crammed wall-to-wall all through the house in stacks taller than your oldest son. There's only enough room for people to walk in, take one each of the eleven inserts, roll them together, slip a rubber band around them and slide them into a plastic bag. We have enough plastic bags to supply every takeout restaurant in America!" Her voice kept rising, as if working its way out of the range of the human ear. "All this must be delivered by seven o'clock Sunday morning."
第二天中午，我回到旅馆，看到一份紧急留言，要我马上给妻子回电话。她的声音高而颤抖，很不自然。家里又运到了好几卡车的广告插页。"有百货公司的，廉价商店的，杂货店的，食品店的，汽车行的，等等。有些像整本杂志那么大。我们这里有数十万页，说不定是几百万页的广告！我们家整个房子从东墙到西墙，从南墙到北墙统统堆满了广告，一堆又一堆，比你大儿子还要高。现在只剩下一点点空间，刚够一个人走进去，从十一种插页中各取一份，卷在一起，套上橡皮筋，再塞进一只塑料袋内。我们的塑料袋足够供应全美所有的外卖餐厅！"她越讲声音越响，几乎震耳欲聋。"这么多的广告必须在星期日早晨七点以前统统送出去。"
"Well, you had better get those guys banding and sliding as fast as they can, and I'll talk to you later. Got a lunch date."
"嗯，你最好让孩子们尽快地捆扎装袋，等会儿我再跟你谈。我有个午餐约会。"
