I have to touch on a rather touchy subject matter; religion. I'm all for people having their own set of beliefs. Everyone needs some sort of spirituality to achieve a level of completeness. Whether it's a scientifically oriented form of spirituality, Catholicism, or the devout worship of the majesty that is mayonnaise covered corn, it's your call. I'm all for whatever makes you less an asshole and more a fulfilled individual.
What I don't need is a pack of 20 year-old Mexicans deciding to stand on the corner of the busiest street in town jumping in and out of traffic with signs that say, "Jesus is alive" and, "Christ loves you." Don't get me wrong, I fully support your right to wave around whatever misguided sign you feel like shoving in other people's faces. If you want to waste your time and accomplish nothing, then that's your prerogative. What's unacceptable is that every time I'd pull up to the stop light that these Sunday night marauders liked to hang out on, they'd jump in front of my car while screaming at me that Jesus will save me. I'm not talking about a polite raising of the voice here either. I'm mean, they were doing their best to blow out their vocal chords while running into the street and aggressively shoving the business end of their over-sized poster-board into the window of my car. They'd also hit the crosswalk button and repeatedly meander from one side of the street to the other in an effort to get their retarded point across and to apparently waste all of our time. This was just a little more than slightly inconvenient when it came to delivering pizzas in a timely fashion. To me it seems like the tactic of wasting everyone's time might dissuade more people than it persuaded. I mean, does the church really think that sending out these cronies would make someone pause and say, "You know what? That tear drop tattoo that was being pressed up against the side of my windshield while I was being verbally victimized really touched me and my inner cholo. I think I'm going to take a bath, drink some Horchata and reread Leviticus when I get home." No, I think it's going to make us all rethink giving amnesty to half of South America. Also, I didn't know JC was a huge fan of ruining the commute of people trying to get home to their families. I personally think Christ would be much more fond of his Hispanic brethren volunteering their time by feeding the homeless and tossing in an extra couple of pesos the next time the Sunday tithe comes around.
Also, why the aggressiveness? Is your screaming and intimidation supposed to really hit the point home that the J man loves me? Because all it makes me want to do is lock my car doors and not visit Tijuana. I'm just saying, both me, my fellow commuters, and the customers that are waiting on their pizzas would appreciate it if you stuck to hanging out at Home Depot and stopped trying to find your way underneath the bumper of my Honda Civic.
Why You're A Terrible Customer, Available Now
What do naked chicks, drunks, junkies, assholes and the homeless all have in common? Pizza. They all order pizza. Whether it's with food stamps or a duffel bag full of recyclables. They all find some way to pay for their pizza and ruin the night of those of us who are unfortunate enough to be stuck on the wrong end of the order taking counter. As a delivery driver, I can tell you right now, I'm absolutely fed up with having to internalize the more ludicrous actions of these cretins. I know I'm not alone in this frustrating battle of the tards either. That's why I wrote a book about all this nonsense that's conveniently being released today. I want to bring a little awareness to the communicative missteps of these individuals as well as direct some attention towards the more unfortunate trends that are cropping up in social situations these days. Employees, employers, girlfriends, boyfriends, best friends, strangers, we're all in this together, and a few common sense tactics, or even just a simple awareness of our own continued stupidity based on my rather potent pizza delivery anecdotes can make our collective ride through this life a whole hell-of-a-lot more pleasant.
If you're curious about the content; I touch on moderately racist topics such as who tips the most based on race and gender. I dive into what topless chicks, drug addicts and white supremacists have offered me for free food, and overall I just try to describe the terribleness that is the life of a retail peon.
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A View To A Kill?
I've had a number of different customers threaten me over the years. Some have been as blatant as a Mexican making the proclamation that he was going to sink a shiv hilt deep into my pancreas. Others have used a bit more subtlety in their verbal threats. Like this one white guy who had Germanic scripture tattooed onto his forehead. My Aryan brother spent the better part of six minutes demanding that I cut him a better deal. He never literally threatened me. I just felt that there was an unspoken hostility that went with the command. Who knows, maybe I'm all wrong, maybe he was just hoping for a better price and I was letting his forearm tattoo of Hitler sitting on a throne of skulls get to me.
At least with those customers, I knew what I was getting. Their threats are either emphasized by the weapon they're wielding or by the amount of damage an ink gun or piercing pistol had done to their visible extremities. There's a somewhat smaller and less aggressive minority of the population that uses a somewhat more ambiguous way of dropping threats. For example, one time I delivered to a rather upscale home that was situated on the edge of Ramona Valley. The home was so luxurious that it was isolated on its own mountaintop. The problem with that was that the mountain was situated inside the Cleveland Forest, making the dense tree growth somewhat difficult to navigate, and thus making it exponentially more challenging to find the front door of this palatial estate. You'd think it would be easy to find a front door, but when you're dealing with mcmansions that are located in the middle of a Pine filled forest, it means that there will always be at least four different unpaved fireroads masquerading as driveways leading to an apartment complex worth of doors. I think this problem is most commonly caused by having way too much money and having a wife that has a hard-on for being progressive. The fact that the place was forested just added to the difficulty level. Bushwhacking through shrubbery while lugging around enough pizza to feed a small African village (or one World of Warcraft fan) makes isolating the correct front door next to impossible. Add in that these homes are generally contemporary and you have what amounts to love seat-sized windows coupled with what looks like master-bedrooms behind each and every door.
That's exactly where I ended up, too. The door I chose was a door that opened up into the master-bedroom. Usually customers would just meet me at whatever door I went to and then I'd make them feel bad enough about their Rubik's Cube of a home that they'd apologize and toss me an extra bit of pity gratuity for my retarded struggles. The problem with this home was that I was staring through a set of French doors with a rather large glass port hole in the middle of it and I spent the better part of a minute-and-a-half watching what looked like a 60 year-old executive-type taking a bong load. This guy seriously looked like he was taking a little stay-cation from his job as lead attorney for Exxon oil, so it was puzzling to see him hitting something that is usually packed by 16 year-olds that spend the better part of their life glued to MMORPG's and not getting laid.
The man mid-toke noticed me and noticeably panicked. My suit and tie wearing homeboy then came to the door and said, "I see you couldn't find the front door. Everybody has that problem. Anyway, my son ordered that. I'll go get him." He then started walking away, stopped, hesitated, turned and said, "You saw absolutely nothing. You got that? You don't mention this to anyone. Okay?" He wasn't hostile when he said this. He was more stern and matter of fact. It was definitely a rhetorical question backed up by some serious bravado. Whether the bravado was fake or not, that's anyone's guess. All I know is he managed to squeeze enough sincerity and meaning into the comment to convince me that telling anybody would be an unwise decision. Well, until now I guess, but I'm not mentioning names or places. I value my life enough to realize that that would be rather foolish move on my part.
What's the point of this story? Well, there's a few points. Threatening me, a 5' 8", 155 pound white guy, can only lead to two outcomes. You're going to kick my moderately midget-like ass for nine dollars worth of food and change, or you're going to get an unexpected beat-down by a Norwegian with a Napoleon Complex. Neither outcome is one you really want, so think about the next time you want to try and shake me down for food or money. Also, let's all think about the architect we're trying to get to build our hillside manors. It's better if their not super baked and drafting the floor plans with a broken etch-a-sketch. I mean, I'm no draftsman, but I'm willing to bet that the less blitzed your contractor is, the more high you'll be able to get in the safety of your not-so-visible master-bedroom. Just a thought.
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.
Stairway To Hell
If there's one thing I've learned over the course of my ten years delivering, it's that people will never fail to disappoint. You would think that after 120 months there'd be nothing left in the average customer's repertoire to shock me. You'd think that the well of crazy would've run dry after having my life threatened by the 43rd creek dwelling crack head. You'd also think that my nostrils would've been thoroughly roto-rootered clean from the slew of seventy-year-old seniors that love to hoard cats. Well, I've learned that that's impossible. No matter how tenured you are, you will still be caught off guard by the ludicrous behavior of those that you're forced to serve.
Anyway, I recently received a call from a customer that went a little something like this:
WAYNE: How can I help you?
CUSTOMER: How far do I live away?
WAYNE: Uhhhhh. What?
CUSTOMER: How far do I live away? I live off of Olive St.
WAYNE: Um, about two miles.
CUSTOMER: Well then, where's my food?
WAYNE: I don't know. Let me pull up your order.
CUSTOMER: You do that.
WAYNE: It says you placed the order 18 minutes ago. It's probably just coming out of the oven. We have to bake the pies first. Plus, we told you it'd take 35 to 45 minutes.
CUSTOMER: Yeah, but I have to walk down stairs when you guys get here.
WAYNE: Huh?
CUSTOMER: I live in a two story house and I have to walk down stairs to meet you guys...
Well in that case, my apologies. We should have gotten the pizza there 15 minutes before you even ordered it. I mean, if I would've known that you had to walk down a single flight of stairs I might of expedited your order to the front of the line. I should've just pushed you ahead of the veteran that ordered before you that's stuck in a wheelchair because he took some shrapnel from an Al Qaeda IED. Also, fuck those families that had the foresight to preorder a day in advance. Just because they're responsible doesn't mean they should get priority. Hell, why don't I just grab a gurney and send out a couple of our younger drivers to lug you down the stairwell. That way we can save you and your calves the unnecessary effort of having to waddle down a half-dozen steps. Better yet, we'll just station a few insiders in the attic of your house. That way, whenever you get the urge to eat pizza, we can just place the order for you and bring it right up. No wait, no fuss.
Mystic Beyonds
My boss, Don, recently sent me out on a delivery that was well out of our delivery area. I guess the customer had somehow made it through the order taking process without being properly vetted, and instead of Don making the executive decision to just call the customer back and politely informing them about their unfortunate location, he just decided to send me out to deliver it. What's even worse was that it was a Friday night, so there were phones ringing, drivers coming and going, and cooks frantically running around like a coked up cast of The Real World (also known as just The Real World). That means no one could hear me bitch about the injustice of having to take an order for a single pepperoni pizza with breadsticks to the mystic beyonds. (My whining needs to be heard!) It also meant that I was going to lose about $10 to $30 dollars by being stuck on the road for an hour when I could be back at the store getting runs to housing projects within the boundaries of our zip code.
I may be exaggerating a bit, well, at least I thought I was. That's before I had to drive up a mountain that resembled Devil's Tower on what was essentially a fire road. I literally bottomed out three times trying to get to this ladies house. Worse yet, I had to call her for directions four times because the paths became so jumbled and unmarked that I was actually unsure if I was still on a road.
When I finally got to the house, a Pit Bull bounded towards me while a a shirtless hillbilly that resembled half the cast of Winter's Bone yelled, "I think you're a little lost, boy." I just nodded in agreement and went to get back in my car when a female voice interjected and told me to hold on. Apparently John Hawkes' wife had placed an order without her husband's full knowledge (that's two Winter's Bone references for those keeping count). I then walked back to the Quonset turned house and was told, "I can't believe you guys deliver all the way out here." followed by an even more emphatic, "I really can't believe you found us!" Instead of clubbing the bitch with the business end of my heatwave bag, I simply nodded and said, "Yeah, about that, you're actually out of our delivery area. We just didn't realize this street was out here until it was too late." The woman just nodded, paid me, and I'm sure tried to place another half dozen orders to same house over the course of the next few weeks. That's just what people do. If they get a bonus that they shouldn't have, they generally try to manipulate the system to try and get their undeserved reward in perpetuity.
The woman was nice enough throughout this entire process. I just have to wonder why someone would order for delivery when they know that they live a fuck-of-a-long way away from the store and when they're fully aware that their house is next to impossible to locate. When your smartphone's GPS tries to tell you that you should just be merciful and drop it in a half-gallon jug of Fireball and that the best way to reach your destination is to fly like a crow until you reach the corona of the sun, then you should probably hesitate before conning the sophomore with the 1.6 GPA into sending the unacceptable order through. That would actually involve worrying about others, though. We wouldn't want to go down that slippery slope of affection and goodwill, now would we?
Double Back, Don't Double Down
I was on the phone the other day with what sounded like a twenty-something year-old girl when I got a completely unexpected question. Now, I've been hit with quite a few doozies like, "Are your hot wings hot?" and, "If your mediums and larges both have eight slices, then what's the difference?" This girl took the questioning to a whole new level, though. She asked "Are your cheesy breadsticks made with real cheese?" I had no clue how to answer this question, because really, what kind of fake cheese am I conjuring up to slap on your pizza related goodies? Am I just melting down recyclables and spreading the resulting love on your loaf of bread with a rusty spoon, or is it much more likely that we're going to use some fresh cheese that we purchased wholesale from Sysco? I just laughed and said "Yes. Our CHEESY breadsticks are made with real cheddar and mozzarella cheese." I tried not to be condescending and to be as polite as possible, but sometimes I just can't omit my demeaning tone or stifle a laugh when I'm blindsided by a question like that. She then paused and said, "You know what I mean, sometimes you don't use real cheese." This is the point of the conversation that I don't understand. Why double down on your retarded question when you have the glorious option to backtrack? The instinctual response should be to say, "Scrap that last question. I'm three liters of JD and an eight ball into my night so I'm a little off kilter at the moment....hold on, *sniff*, sorry, I just had to do a rail of coke and hit my OD-ing friend with a syringe filled with adrenaline. Yeah, send those Cheese sticks my way ASAP." Instead, people deem it necessary to treat their nonsensical statements like their a life preserver and their stranded in the middle of the Pacific. Never mind that the preserver is coated in seal's blood and your smack dab in the middle of a pod of orcas.
We did a few laps before she eventually just asked for the price. In my opinion she was a nice enough girl, she just needed to learn the valuable life lesson of backtracking and accepting her momentary lapse of judgment. A lesson I think we all need to learn and acknowledge to make this world a better and more intellectually gifted place.
Self-Flagellation
There was a delightful bit of delivery driving justice that got doled out yesterday. The joyous moment occurred when an apartment dwelling ne'er-do-well internet ordered for delivery four minutes before we closed. That's not necessarily that egregious of an assault, although it does make me question the kindness and thoughtfulness of the individual ordering. You see, when you internet order there's a reminder that continually pops up that essentially counts down the amount of time the customer has left to order before we close. That means the customer saw the store timer dipping down into the low single digits and yet still deemed that curing their severe case of the munchies was far more important than the lives of the individuals that crave nothing more than to make it home before the sun starts to rise. What made matters more frustrating was that what had to have been the 19 year-old customer called back after his food was made because he messed up his own order and wanted to change some of the items that were already made. The process went less than smoothly thanks to the kid sounding like Daniel Tosh, that is, if Tosh had been used as batting practice for the better part of a decade by a juiced up Mark McGwire.
Anyway, my boss and I are quality, company first employees, so we made and remade the order with only a modicum of bitching along the way. When I arrived at the apartment complex about 15 minutes later I realized that their complex had already locked its electronically sealed gate. That meant that there was effectively no way to get inside. And considering it was after 1 AM there wouldn't be anybody going in and out for me to be able to sneak behind either. That meant I had to call the customer and ask him to meet me at the gate. A small win for me, considering it forced the lethargic and probably semi-stoned customer to exert a bit of unwanted effort without me having to do anything untoward.
The young adult eventually made his way to the walk-in gate, swung it open and then sauntered on over towards me. That's when he suddenly stopped and reached back for the gate only to hear a rather violent thud and a snap. The gate had locked behind him. I could see the disappointment in his eyes. I didn't waste a single moment in getting the transaction over with. I just told him the bill and handed the kid the pizza. He proceeded to dejectedly pay me, take the pizzas and then walk back to the gate and stare at it quizzically.
I walked back to my car, got in and watched in utter amusement as the kid, who had no sympathy for the people working until the wee morning hours, struggled to find a way in. Judging by his confounded look, it quickly became clear he didn't have his phone or his keys on him. He was completely stuck. By the time I decided to pull away the kid had shoved the pizza under the gap at the base of the gate and was unsuccessfully attempting to scale the complex's spiked fence. The spiked fence looked like it should have come with a complimentary murder hole above it just to complete the architectural Game of Thrones-esque theme. I imagine he eventually made it over the fence, or impaled himself (God willing). Even if he was unable to accomplish either feat, he had a pizza to keep him warm and satiated until someone with a key meandered on by. Who knows, maybe he could even use his solitude to ruminate on his decision to ruin the nights of several other hardworking people, or at the very least he could take the time to appreciate the majesty of karma and the bitch of a punishment that it routinely hands out.
Family Ties
Customer's don't always come in the form of anonymous strangers that you'll probably never see again. Sometimes they appear as family members, or worse yet, family members of friends. These dastardly relatives by proxy can be rude, drunk, cold, selfish and callous, and there's little to nothing an employee can do to better the situation or improve the experience. If I were to react hostilely, I would not only be punished by my employer for accosting a customer or for having a shitty behavior, I would be verbally assaulted/black-balled by the related co-worker that can't seem to figure out how to reign in their terrible bloodline from being a terrorist.
A shift runner of mine recently had her brother-in-law place an order with me. That's perfectly acceptable if said brother-in-law decided to be pleasant on the phone, at home when I delivered the order, and aware of who I was when I arrived.
You see, I arrived at my shift runner's flophouse of a home only to find the house empty. (Weird, considering there's a small colony worth of people that should be committed to a court appointed rehab living there.) I tried to call the brother-in-law to see where he was at and, as one would expect, I was promptly directed to voicemail. I spent the next handful of minutes just sitting in my car and contemplating the notion of driving my Civic through the side of their house. Right before my fantasy was about to become a reality, a lifted truck pulled up loaded down with a hot wife, a kid and a guy with Dickies shorts, a cut-off T and a bro-hat. An attire that screams of class, sophistication and a penchant for ripping bong loads and impregnating minors at high-school parties while rolling around naked on a pile of unemployment checks.
The guy walked up to me and said, "Sorry bro, I went to Chase to get money for the pizza."
First off, Chase is less than a block away from our store. All this crack addicted version of Carson Daly had to do was go across the street from Chase and pick up his food for a fraction of the price. Why would you travel four miles to be a school bus's length away from your pizza, only to travel another four miles to not be home when your pizza delivery guy shows up? It was like he was doing all he could to actively avoid his food.
He then followed up that gem by saying "It was fucked up. That guy Wayne on the phone wouldn't hook me up."
You know what's wrong with that statement? First off, I'm Wayne. Congratulations for inadvertently shit talking the guy standing right in front of you. Secondly, I'm not allowed to hook anybody up for delivery. Nobody is. We can give discounts to family for carry-out orders, but that means you have to pry your lazy ass up out of your recliner and make the long and perilous journey to our store. Oh, that's right. You already did, but instead you simply opted to go to the ATM and leave me stranded at your house.
He made to sure to end our conversation on a high note by saying, "Wayne told me you guys were going to be like 30 minutes. Wayne's a fucking liar, man."
...............I decided at this point I wasn't going to tell him I was Wayne. I wanted to see how far the shit talking was going to go. To my utter dismay, it ended there, but not without still managing to draw my ire. I mean, when did telling somebody you'd be at their house within the next 30 minutes lead to them being pissed if the arrival occurred sometime before that. I mean, it seems like customers should be pretty stoked to see their favorite fast food arriving early. I'm essentially recreating the very definition of what I'm delivering. It's FAST FOOD. Not slow to middling food. A speedy delivery means I'm doing my job well. It's not like I'm DirecTV and I'm giving you a three week window in which I'll make an appearance. I'm giving you a 30 minute time frame. I don't think that it's all that much of a challenge to hold your ground for all 1,800 seconds that I estimated that I'd take.
The most infuriating part of all of this nonsense is I got back to the store, complained to the related co-worker and was promptly me with nothing more than a hearty laugh. I didn't get an apology or even an insincere feigning of disappointment. I simply was laughed at. See, this is what I don't understand. If my brother-in-law came to my place of work and gave the business to our insiders, I would've never stopped apologizing for his behavior. For whatever reason, I would feel partly guilty for being associated with a cretin that decided to ruin the day of someone that I worked with. Instead, I received an apathetic and an uncaring response. All from the manager of a pizza parlor. Who would've thought, right?
SS Gestapo
You know what's not funny? The ridiculous names that guys conjure up because they think they're hilarious. (Come on wives, girlfriends and bros, step up and straighten out your unfunny friends/fiancees. It may be a startling blow to their unaware ego, but it'll save you and them a lot of unnecessary years of embarrassment if you just enlighten them on their humorous shortcomings instead of allowing their snowball of stupidity to gain too much of a head of steam and you wind up completely losing your ability to properly reign it back in.) To show you that I'm not just being prickly, I'm going to give a small list of names that have popped up on orders both via the internet and in person. Now, these are just some of the names that have been given to me in the last week, so imagine what I've gotten in my lifetime.
SS Gestapo
I like the idea that the person who placed this particular online order wasn't content to be a part of just one World World terrorist organization. I guess being a part of a singular group that was semi-responsible for the deaths of seven million human beings lacked the panache of being fully committed to two different branches of evil that were directly responsible for dabbling in genocide. The real kicker? When the customer came into the store he had to have been in his early sixties. Yup, a man who could have been born on the precipice of WWII itself thought pretending to be a war criminal was amusing. Our entire staff had jumped to the conclusion that the customer was going to be somewhere in the single digits in the age department, or at most, three pubes deep into puberty, not a fully fledged, card carrying member of AARP that's paying for their pizza with their social security. Isn't it sad that this is how far we've come as a society. We're no longer relying on the elderly to pass on wisdom. We're counting on them to be as equally degenerate as a 17 year-old high school drop out turned convict. It's a fucking tragedy.
Rehni El Bhano
All right, this one is fairly clever. It took about forty seven re-reads before I got the joke. I'm just hoping that the customer didn't put in nearly as much time to phrase it as I took to get it. 'Runny Toilet' in broken Spanish/internet lingo only has so much of a comedic punch before you start to really feel sorry for the person that was sitting on the order screen contemplating all the less-than-amusing surnames that they could inject into their order of Cheesybread. I mean, wittiness is a valuable trait, but make sure to waste that kind of calorie burning hilarity on something that more than a grand total of three people will see.
Charisorous-sex
The glorious part about a twenty year-old dude referring to himself as a hyper-sexualized Pokemon is that at some point he's going to have to come into the store and pick up his order. That means, when we ask him what his name is he's going to have to say with a semi-straight face that he has the comedic talent of Kevin Ward after ending up in Tony Stewart's wheel-well. It's almost a joy to see people put themselves in awkward positions, because I'll let you in on a little secret, we don't care. As long as you let us know who you are, we're golden. We just want to move the line along, but getting to see your face as you tell us that your a big fan of an anime series that's meant for nine year-old Japanese children suffering from semi-severe brain trauma is priceless.
These were just a couple of the idiotic names that were thrown my way this week. I wish I could chalk them all up to momentary lapses of judgment, but I'm beginning to think that we as a nation just completely lost our ability to be professional and civil. I mean, is it too hard to pretend like you have the capacity to act like a grown-ass adult, or do you really have to come across like someone that compulsively chugs the squeegee water at 7-Elevens around the country?
The Ramona Ritz
I delivered to the always culturally rich Ramona Valley Inn a while back. As always, it was chalked full of thespians and Rhode Scholars that were cos-playing as heroin fiends and members of ISIS. They were wearing such realistic costumes, too. The track marks and missing teeth really hit their creative points home.
Anyway, it was well beyond the time in which civilized patrons should be consuming greased up dough and dairy. That's why it only makes good sense that when I got to the second floor of the complex and knocked on the door, a dude in his early 20's answered the door with what looked like a head of hair that an elephant seal had blown a load in. He was also sporting a suede button-up shirt and designer jeans that screamed that it was party time. I was even more ecstatic about the situation when John Travolta's gayer twin opened the door the entire way and I noticed another smaller, but equally gelled up guido sitting on the bed.
I may be over thinking things here. I mean, maybe it's perfectly normal for two guys in their mid-20's to rent a room at a hotel that looks like it charges by the hour. I'm sure it's also perfectly normal to have two metrosexuals spending the night in a room while looking like walking talking fire hazards. Seriously, if someone dunked these two charmers into the Pacific Ocean they'd make the Exxon Valdez spill look like someone dropped a stick of butter off the bow of a four person pontoon.
What really struck me as odd about the two gentleman is that they were completely uninterested in the pizza. They both were focusing their attention in on me. I'm not being egotistical or anything. They were simply ignoring the pizza and inviting me in to party with them. It wasn't a casual fist bump or a friendly invitation either. The main man at the door was trying to entice me into the room by offering me a bottle of Grey goose. I'm not doing the conversation justice, though, so here it is:
JT: Hey, you want to come in?
ME: No, that's okay.
JT: Aw, come on. We have some Grey Goose. We'll let you have the bottle.
ME: ....uhhh....No thanks. I appreciate the offer, though.
JT: Are you sure??
ME: Yeah. I don't think my boss would appreciate me drinking or hanging out on the clock.
JT: What time do you get off work? You should come over after your done.
ME: I get off way too late. Like 1 or 2am.
JT: That's perfect. Come on over after that. Are you sure you don't want to come in for a while?
ME: Yeah, I'm good.
JT: Ummm, well, we'll have some chicks over later. You should come over and come inside when you're done with work. They'll be waiting.
ME: Sounds like a great time....
JT: So, see you later?
ME: Yeah....
I went back to the hotel after I got off work, walked in and was promptly bound, gagged and skull fucked by what looked like two extras from Goodfellas for the better part of the AM hours. I was essentially the baked good in a horrible game of soggy biscuit.
Just kidding, I got the fuck out of there and told my boss there was no chance in hell I was going back to that complex again. These assholes were literally trying to lure me into their room. I really think that the bottle of Grey Goose that they were offering me wasn't for drinking. I'm thinking that they had a literal goose that they were going to try and shove up my ass.
Homeboy number one's lie about supposed women showing up later was oh-so convincing too. I'm sure there were shorties just lining up for a chance to party in a run-down hotel room that smelled of pomade and baby oil. The enlarged pupils, excessive winking and effeminate way in which the men tried to entice me in almost sold me on the prospect of a slew of smokin' hot hotties showing up.
Just a little helpful advice to all those testing the rape waters out there. At least try and be convincing. Pay a hooker to stand a few dozen feet away from the door to at least make a case for a woman eventually showing up. Also, don't be overly persistent. Ask once, if the intended victim doesn't bite, odds are their asshole is clenched and their awareness is peaked. Also, in my case, people knew where I was. I mean, my boss and co-workers are fully aware of where I went, so don't treat me like I'm a Craigslist victim that got duped into meeting underneath a bridge overpass. I'm a pizza delivery guy with his brown cherry intact, and dammit, that's the way it's going to stay.
Thighs!
Thankfully the customer related fun and excitement doesn't always involve me. On occasion I'm lucky enough to get to hover just outside of the pain and suffering of my fellow co-workers and take in the majesty of assholes from a distance. For example, the other day my boss Don and I were closing up shop when an elderly Korean gentleman wandered in off the street. After the first few words were exchanged it became abundantly clear that the Korean man spoke absolutely zero English. Well, to be fair, he spoke one word of English. That word being "Thighs." Here's how the whole conversation went:
DON: Hi, how can I help you?
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: Thighs!
DON: What?
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: Thighs!
DON: You want to order wings?
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: NO! Thighs!
DON: I'm not sure...
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: THIGHS!
DON: Uhhh...so you want an order of wings. What size would you like?
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: Order thighs!
DON: *sigh* So, an eight piece or twelve piece?
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: ten!
DON: we don't...*rubs forhead* KFC has thighs. You should try going over there.
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: *hands Don food stamps*
DON: We don't have thighs. Try KFC. You'd love their selection. They'll have everything you want. They even accept EBT.
LIQUOR STORE OWNER: *aggressively shoves food stamps at Don again*
DON: *sigh* All right. An order of eight piece "thighs."
Think about that. Our store owner was pleading with the man to take his business elsewhere because he rather lose money than do this retarded dance. Can you imagine what would happen if Don went into a Circle K and started screaming "Car wash" at the Korean clerk? We'd be hit in the face with a flying roundhouse kick. That's what would happen. Yet, somehow it's appropriate for this guy to come in on the dole and repeatedly yell at our store owner for an item that doesn't even exist on our menu. Now, explain to me why people consider me the monster for asking other cultures to assimilate? I'm sure that the better part of the southern hemisphere would absolutely welcome a slice of little America in their community. I mean, I'm positive Honduras would love me leeching off their government programs (if they had government programs) and yelling at their small business owners. I'm not even saying that other cultures should learn English. I'm just saying that regardless of where your from or who you are, be respectful. Try grabbing a menu and pointing to what you want, don't take the only word you know and unrelentingly holler it at the high school dropout that's manning the store's oven. Just a thought.
The Real 12th Man
I was recently leaving the store with a couple of deliveries when I noticed a shady sixty-plus year-old man leaning up against a shit-box 90's Toyota PoS. The guy was wearing what looked like a woman's smedium Seattle Seahawks Jersey. He couldn't have been more than 135 pounds, 15 of which had to have been facial hair. It wasn't like he had a Brian Wilson or James Harden beard or anything. It just seemed like his stubble spanned his entire face. There was literally facial hair from his chin to his receding hair line and everywhere in between. He essentially looked like what someone would dress up as if they wanted to go to a Halloween party as a pedophile.
Anyway, I was walking to my car when I realized that the quasi-homeless dude seemed as though he wanted to initiate a bit of a conversation. He seemed harmless enough, so I gave a courtesy head nod and a "Hey, how's it going?" To which he responded "You know what? You got some hot bitches 'round here." He then held out his fist and said "Am I right? Pound it."
I didn't know whether he meant that the preteens we hired as cooks were smokin' hot, or whether the parking lot was crawling with a slew of divine damsels, and to be honest I didn't care. I just wanted to go on my delivery, so I gave the man a little knuckle on knuckle love and went on my way, and by that I mean I blew him. I just thought that "bitches" was code, so I went for it. Don't judge me either, I'm here to make tips, not friends.
Truthfully, I just went on my delivery after giving him a quick dap. When I got back to the store and told the insiders about the perv in the parking lot, they said that the very same guy came in while I was gone and tried to hit on every member of the waiting staff. Apparently he just tried to kill all of our female insiders with kindness, got his EBT card declined and ultimately left without any food.
This is where I have to wonder where it all went wrong for this guy. How did this man, who could have very well been a grandfather, successfully make it through 72-plus months of life on the dole and decide that girls that are too young to get their driver's permit are still in his wheelhouse? I guess introspection isn't the strong suit of a sloth-like septuagenarian, but still, you'd think that at a certain point you'd look in the mirror and realize referring to women as bitches and telling guys half your age to give a Lil' Wayne-like fist bump would be inappropriate. Than again, maybe the guy who's been delivering pizzas for half his life shouldn't be the guy dispensing life altering lessons.
Good-Cop, Bad-Cop
I think I was just on the receiving end of a spirited round of good-cop, bad-cop. The experience began when our store received an internet order for a 40 piece platter of BBQ wings. Nothing unusual about that. The delivery was made and everyone was seemingly satisfied. About 15 minutes after the food was delivered we received a call from what sounded like a middle-aged woman claiming that she received the wrong order. We asked her what she received. She claimed she got BBQ wings instead of mango habanero wings. That's a big mistake if it's true, because the cost of that mishap alone would probably be close to $20 dollars in lost food.
Poultry has a serious cost involved with it. The profit margin on fowl is practically non-existent. It's essentially an item we carry to cater to the request of customers as opposed to something that actually helps keep the lights on and the ovens churning.
Anyway, our shift runner/my ex-girlfriend Amber proceeded to review the messed up order that was placed in our computer. Turns out the internet order that was placed by this particular customer was in fact for BBQ wings, so she got exactly what she ordered, and that's what Amber told her. The woman hesitated a moment then stated, "Well, I must have mis-clicked online. I wanted habanero wings. Can I get another order sent to me for free?" To which the always responsible Amber replied with an honest yet apologetic, "You got exactly what you ordered. We can't just send you $30 dollars worth of free food. We can discount the food and get it out to you as soon as possible, though." As one would expect, the customer was unwilling to take responsibility for her own inept actions, so she responded with an, "I order from you guys all the time, you should have called me when you noticed something was wrong."
There are so many things wrong with that singular statement that I don't even know where to begin. How are we supposed to know that you mis-ordered? We can't possibly know what you intended to order. How could we? Even if you ordered from us every single day of your life, you couldn't honestly expect us to keep track of your preferences and comprehend that you're in the mood for something besides what you personally ordered. Worse yet, according to this customer's order history she ordered about once every six weeks, so it was exponentially more unfeasible that we memorize her cravings. Overall, you have to understand that the responsibility lies with you to order the appropriate item. Not for us to telepathically proofread your order. We make internet orders with the idea that you ordered what you wanted. We don't go in assuming that mastering a mouse is too tall an order for you and your loved ones.
Amber just kept tossing out a tidal wave of apologies for each and every terrible excuse that was hurled her way. After the cascade of whining subsided and the ownership of responsibility was partially avoided, the lady ordered an extra 40 piece platter of wings at a heavily discounted price and said that she'd come in and pick it up.
Amber asked me if I could assist the disgruntled customer when she came in since she had already had to experience the bulk of the bitching. I understood where she was coming from, so I begrudgingly accepted. It's sort of an unspoken rule that we pass around the pain in an attempt to ease everybody's suffering. It's like paying it forward, but the payment is essentially a slow skewering of our soul and the steady removal of our sanity.
About 15 minutes later two women walked into the store. One looked to be in her mid-forties and the other seemed to be in her early twenties. I asked the two how I could help them, to which the older of the two women said, "Your favorite customers are here." I obviously figured out who it was, so I grabbed their wings and pulled up their order so that I could expedite the payment process and get them out of the store before they decided to launch into a full-blown hissy fit. Right when I brought up the order the younger of the two ladies said, "I don't understand why we don't get this for free. I work in the restaurant business and that's part of the job." I then replied that most restaurants don't have a website in which you can order all your food to your own specifications. I then hit the point home that their order wasn't messed up. It was made perfectly according to what they sent through. She ignored my logic and then, with as much venom as possible, asked for everything for free, again.
That's when the older woman said, "Don't worry about it. Can I get your name, sir? I'm going to write your boss a letter on how polite you are. I appreciate you discounting the food for us when it was our mistake." The younger girl then suddenly chimed in that she wanted a larger discount in addition to a complimentary couple of 2-liters for being inconvenienced. Before I could respond the older lady shot out a, "I don't think we tipped the driver enough. Add an extra two dollars to our bill for his time. Thanks!" The younger girl then demanded a handful of free ranch dressing for the road.
I was so flustered at this point that I was just fumbling around on the computer pretending to do work. The older lady tossed out a final "Sorry for the trouble," paid and then left. It was the most confusing five minutes of my life. The younger lady was berating me while the older woman was showering me with niceties. I never been so emotionally mixed up.
My question in all of this is why didn't the nicer of the two ladies tell the ignorant youngin' to shut the hell up? If I was apologizing for a mishap and a younger slightly more retarded version of myself was undermining my sincerity, I'd backhand them and tell them to go sit in the car while the grownups were talking.
Also, if I worked at a restaurant and understood the plight of a fellow industry member that was caught in a pickle, I wouldn't do exactly what every retail employee/food handler despises; that's act like a bitch with a breadstick stuck up my ass. I'd respond in a productive manner. By that I mean I'd inject a heavy dose of understanding into my complaint with a hint of an apology tacked on, but that's just me. Who am I to bring cold hard logic into an otherwise irrational situation? It would be like a member of SEAL Team Six showing up at the local Marine Ball and kicking the doorman in the nuts for not icing Obama first. It wouldn't happen because they're on the same team. Just like me and my whiny waitress friend.
So what's the moral of this story? I have no fucking idea. I'm still confused.
Coyote Ugly
I'm somewhat accustomed to the verbal jabs that customers feel obligated to toss my way. I mean, I deserve most of them. I do repeatedly commit criminally punishable acts such as arriving three minutes earlier than specified (Seriously, people get pissed when I arrive with their pizzas a couple of minutes earlier than expected). On top of that borderline felony, it's also common knowledge that I force our pizzeria's corporate overlords to charge exorbitant prices for a product I have no control over. What I'm saying is that I definitely deserve to be lambasted by rich white people about prices I have nothing to do with. Luckily, I've come to terms with these realities over the course of my last ten years of employment. I've even started to expect them.
What I haven't come to terms with, and what recently caught me by surprise, was that I wasn't harassed by a patron when I was delivering to an upper-middle class suburb called the Country Estates. I was hounded (no pun intended) by a fucking coyote. It all started when I parked at the bottom of a long steep driveway at around 9pm. Right when I started my ascent up the hill; a coyote came tearing out of the brush after me. I ran like the wind with my pizza and heatwave bag in tow. I made it to the customer's door, turned around, and braced myself for an injection of a dishwasher cap worth of Rabies. I was also fully counting on delivering a hefty dose of my own foulness into my work-cargo shorts, but when I turned around the beast was gone.
I've had my life threatened repeatedly. Once by a Mexican with a butterfly knife that was truly determined to score some pizza from me, but never have I been as frightened as I was in the 14 seconds it took me to scale that damn driveway.
Gotta' love the delivery life.
