Adventures in Pizza

After an AP story directed me to this blog I had an idea, why not do something similar? For the past ~4 1/2 years while I've been in and out of college one of the constants in my life has been my part time job delivering pizzas, and like the cab lady I've seen a lot of weird shit that strangers might find interesting. So why not?

Let's start with tonight. Well, for starters it was slow for some reason. January usually is, but James had sent out some advertising last week and the weekend had been reasonable, so there was cause for hope, but for whatever reason that didn't pan out. In 4 hours I took six runs, but they were fairly good ones.

The best tip of the night was from a pregnant woman who ordered two calzones. I pull up and walk to the door and at first her two little toddlers come and press their faces against the glass, and then she appears in all of her knocked up glory. I'm smiling at her from outside in my usual faux-oh-i'm so happy to see you-pose, and she starts talking to me. This totally threw me off for a second because she hadn't opened the door, but then I realize that the upper half of the screen door is missing and that she can communicate with the outside world through the opening while at the same time feel safe that her children won't scamper off. Anyway I hand her the credit card slip and she quickly signs it without glancing at the tip part, and I'm already thinking my usual hateful thoughts about ungrateful bitches and so on, but then she hands it back to me with a fiver and all is forgiven, naturally.

The other interesting delivery was to this blacklisted cat who lives out on this country road where we're the only ones who deliver there. I instituted the black list about a year ago after becoming fed up with people like him who are constantly pulling crazy shit and trying to get free pizzas, falling asleep right before we pull up with their stuff, calling the store and complaining when we don't give them the last 20 cents of their change, that sort of stuff, and I'm quite proud of it. There was some hesitation at first, in part because James absolutely hates to not give business to anyone, I swear he would serve the Devil himself after he'd cheated him 20 times, and also I think something may have been lost in translation to James and Charlie b/c they'd never heard of a 'blacklist' before and maybe thought there was some sort of racial connotation involved (of course the majority of the blacklisted folks are of that persuasion, but I digress). Anyway in the end I prevailed, and this guy was one of the first to appear.

He always took hours to come to the door, several times he wasn't there, a few times he claimed he didn't have the money, and to top it all off he was just scary. He lives in this old ramshackle place with a bunch of mean looking dogs, there are never any lights on in his house, and let's just say he has the face of a meth addict. But after several months of not calling, today he calls, not once but twice. He had called during the day shift and had asked to have something delivered to 4905, which was right next to where he lived and which was the address of an abandoned trailer. Abdul took the call over the phone and knew what was going on but because of James he decided to take down the order. He knew the guy was actually calling from 4891 but when he delivered it he feigned naivete and pulled up to 4905, knocked on the door, and when no one answered he left. Of course, he told me, as he was pulling away he sees the guy bust out of his house and start running down the street chasing him, but Abdul said he just laughed and kept on truckin'. Well the guy called the store before Abdul could return and James called Abdul and made him go back.

Right after Abdul tells me all of this the guy calls, and I have to take the run. Charlie, who took the order, had heard everything about what transpired during the day and as such asks him if he's going to be there. The guy assures him that he'll wait by the mailbox. So I take off with the run, get there in under 30 minutes probably (which was fortunate for meth-boy) and sure enough he's dutifully standing by the mailbox at 8:30 at night in the dark waiting for his two lasagnas to arrive. Now after hearing the story of his daytime humiliation I was a little bit concerned that this might be a revenge call and that he might be plotting something, but if anything I robbed him coz his order was 15.30 and I gave him 4 back from his 20 then hopped in the car like the thought of pocket change never occured to me. Fuck him, anyway, he never tips and yet he is relentless in his calling and now that he's found a way back into the system I know he'll be a daily fixture on the sheets. Whatever, I'll just do what I always do with the no-tippers: whenever possible I'll get there as late as I possibly can, I'll let their shit slide all over the place in my car without concern for the structural integrity of their pizza or whatever, and I'll try to find some way to get them blacklisted, or, in his case, re-blacklisted.