Old Newspaper

This is a true story about my father who likes to buy newspaper almost everyday. One thing that impressed me that he would arrange the old newspaper neatly in the storeroom after the day is over. After sometimes when the stack is about an arm length in height, he would call the old newspaper man to be sold.

One day in 2010, he was approached by a not so familiar old newspaper man.”Old newspaper! Old batteries!”  came out from the recorded voice as the old newspaper man drove slowly in his 1 tonne red and green 2.5 litre diesel  lorry with  dark grey thick tarpaulin covering its cargo.

My father hurried down to the front of his house and called “Old newspaper” . As the lorry came to a halt, the old newspaper man in his late forties, wearing  a white shirt and khaki bermuda  and his young assistant came down and picked up a stack of old newspaper after my father  showed  them the way to the storeroom.

 “RM 8 and 10 cents my friend” he said as he quickly put the newspaper on the weathered light green weighing scale with red a pointer and  aluminum tray and was about to haul it into his truck.

My father was furious and said “Wait! Can you please weight it again?”

The man quickly put back the newspaper back and the scale show almost 27 kg all right. “I am selling to you at 30 cents per kg, so 27 kg times 30 cent come to  RM8.10, ok I give you the 10 cents even though it is a bit less than 27 Kgs”  the old newspaper man said in a throaty muscular voice as he tried to be friendly.

“Stay for a moment, I want to get something more in my house” my father said in a commanding voice.

The old newspaper man cannot stop grinning from ears to ears, as his wrinkled face lighten up because my father was getting more of old things to be sold to him .Old car batteries, old children tricycle, corrugated boxes, magazines came into his mind, thanking his friendly manner and the extra 10 cents which attracted my father. “Ahh, today is 22 April, I will set it in my mobile phone reminder for next visit. This man is a well read person, so he has a lot of paper based items to be sold”, he thought as his assistant gargled down his throat plenty of  plain water from an old soft drink bottle.

My father was thinking otherwise. He searched high and  low for an item with a known weight, not to be sold but act as a standard for weight. Suddenly he saw something in the kitchen, a 10 kg rice sack. He quickly brought it to the two men waiting at the front gate.

The newspaper men were quite puzzled by my father's action. He just watched as my father put the sack on the scale and to their amazement, the scale tipped 9 Kgs. “ Sorry sir, this scale is out of order, we don’t know it, we will fix it straight away after this. Here you extra RM1.00 sir”

My father was quite upset that he accepted the extra RM1.00 with a mild angry tone. Who would know how many persons have they fooled or it is true they will fixed the scale straight away ?

Actually, my father  is so get used to selling old newspaper that he can gauge the weight for  certain days of  newspaper collection and the price he would get from the old newspaper man. He usually sells a stack of about 30 Kgs and get around RM9.00. There are a few old newspaper men who approach him and the one who is at the right timing will usually get to buy the old newspaper from my father.

This story really opens my mind on the importance of consumer rights that should be exercised by all people in Malaysia.