Children of Men

I may do quite a bit of complaining about customers, but to a certain extent I expect the non-stop abuse from irritable or rageful consumers. It comes with the delivering territory. To be fair, it just comes with the territory of interacting with fellow human beings. In every career path or industry there's the displeasing part of having to socialize with those that have essentially hunkered down into a emotional time capsule that has stunted them at or around the age that they sprouted their first pube. I'd speculate that these mentally shortchanged individuals have permanently set up shop in this middle-school to high-school range because that was their glory years. These unfortunate souls are merely living to recreate the days in which they were getting dome underneath the school bleachers by the better part of the entire dance squad. Unfortunately, their uneducated 47 year-old type-two diabetic body that's been worn down by years of parachuting Oxy doesn't quite match the full head of hair and shredded physique that they had all those years ago. Thus the world has a creature that has the permanent intellectual and physical capabilities of a blowfish that has a contact high operating in the adult world.

That's what make my next experience more depressing than irritating. No, I lied. It's both completely irritating and undeniably depressing. I took a run to an address a couple of miles out of town. I found the address without incident and smoothly made my way to the customer's front door with their pizza. Right when I reached for the doorbell a full-grown German Shephard came bounding around the side of the house and charged me. This isn't all that surprising. For whatever reason, people deem it necessary to let their wildly aggressive hounds wander around untethered in their unfenced property. Naturally this led me to do the only thing I could do, I used the pizzas as a sort of sparring pad to fend off the dog until the woman of the household decided to check the front door to see what all the commotion was about. 

When the middle-aged woman found out I was attempting to avoid a less than gentle mauling she jumped into action and restrained her mutt. After she struggled but ultimately succeeded in caging the beast inside a spare room in the house she told me that her husband had ordered the pizza but that he went to 7-Eleven to get some snacks. I just replied with a calm and cool, "Not a problem. You could pay for the..." and before I could even get to the part where I suggested that she could pay for the order, she said that she didn't have any money and that I was going to have to wait for her husband to come back. I just sighed and decided to wait it out. When customers are ill prepared for the arrival of the food that THEY ORDERED I usually just tell the customers that I have other runs to take and that they can pick up their food at the store. Sadly, it was an exceptionally slow day back at the store, so I decided that I better wait this customer out because it was very likely that this would be my last delivery. 

I didn't leave, but I did try to see if I could ham up some sympathy and maybe earn an extra tip by pitifully standing at the door. Nope. The wife decided to check out and go back to watching Duck Dynasty while frying up an industrial sized vat of Mac & Cheese that I'm convinced she was going to eat with her fingers. At least that's what I'm assuming she was doing. Call it an educated guess based on their world class decor. I mean, an outdoor ottoman mixed with windows that have no screens screams bourgeois in it's own way, it just so happens that it's more the boiled hot dogs way and less the Chateaubriand way. Anyway, while the lady left me alone, their dog decided to double back down on the torment by jumping up and down in the window next to the front door and howling for a taste of the blood that was coursing through my veins. About five minutes into my wait the dog was still frothing at the mouth, but besides that, what appeared to be a five year-old little girl came to the door. The girl proceeded to ask me if I was the pizza guy. I told her politely that indeed I was. To which she responded with, "My daddy went to the store. I wanted to go with him, but he told me no. I don't get to see my daddy ever. Why'd he tell me he wanted to take the dog instead of me?" She then slinked off, not sad, but just as if that was the way the world worked. As if neglect was just a normal part of the parenting process. I'm not generally one to believe the exaggerations of children, but it was hard not to believe the girl when I was sort of experiencing the neglect and level of irresponsibility first hand. 

I know I usually inject a bit of humor into these posts, but this time around I want to input a little advice. If you're going to have children, then take fucking care of them. Also, mom, feel free to let your husband know that the dog should come a distant second to the kid. If it takes a bi-weekly handjob and an extra serving of deep fat fried Dino Nuggets to motivate him, then so fucking be it. Just please attempt to raise your child right. Oh, and please use an IUD and convince the old man to leave you with at least an emergency Andy Jackson. I need to be paid and the world doesn't need anymore emotionally abused children.