I'm pretty sure I emanate a sort of holier-than-thou sort of attitude. Trust me when I say that I don't intend to convey that I'm somehow perfect or superior. I'm far from it. I've had a plethora of unfortunate incidences with customers that were entirely my fault and I'm fully willing to admit that.
One time specifically I was gathering a small order for what was a rather standard mother daughter customer combination. The mother had to be in her early forties and the little girl couldn't have been more than eight. When I brought their food over to the counter and placed it in front of them the mom handed me a credit card. The order couldn't have gone any smoother. She was on top of the payment, she was seemingly satisfied with her food and she was perfectly pleasant.
After a few beats, the credit card machine fully processed the order and chugged out a copy of paper that the customer needed to sign. I handed the woman the slip and nonchalantly fished out a pink pen from behind our counter. That's when the kid chimed in and said, "Why do you have a bright pink pen?" I was in a good mood and the question was innocent enough to where I thought I'd respond. As a rule I generally ignore children in an effort to remind them that they're less than human until they turn the ripe old age of 18. In my opinion it should be law that all human beings under the age of consent should be kenneled. Just imagine the utopia we'd be living in. There wouldn't be a single line at Disneyland, movies wouldn't look like a starry night sky that's lit with the illuminated smartphones of a hundred preteens, and teenage pregnancy would completely disappear. Our society would be an unfettered paradise. Sure, there might be some unknown consequences to creating a whole generation of imprisoned latchkey kids, but the social awkwardness and severe spike in rickets would be well worth the reward of not having to endure little jam hands sticking their Toaster Strudel encrusted fingers all over every reflective surface within arms reach. Also, influenza, herpes and other communicable diseases would absolutely drop off the map. Without the petri dish known as school to harbor the majority of these illnesses and STD's, the fountain of funk that kids bring home would dry up quicker than my girlfriend after seeing me with my shirt off. There might be a slight problem with educating the crusty cretins while they're in lockup, though, but I'll flesh out the bugs and the minutia that might present itself once my program starts to gain some political momentum.
But I digress. The kid's question about my slightly homoerotic pen was a valid one. Plus, my home prison idea wasn't in effect yet, so I thought I'd answer her. I said, "The reason our store has a bunch of pink pens is because we picked them up in honor of breast awareness month." Do you see the problem there? For those that missed it, I should have said, "Breast CANCER awareness month." There's a big difference between the two celebrations. breast cancer awareness occurs in the month of October. I'd say the other 11 months and the majority of the rest of the world wide web covers the remainder of the majestic celebration that is breast awareness.
The look that the mom gave me was of utter shock. The horror in her eyes suggested that I had just violated her eight year-old's spirit with the business end of an entire bulk pack of pink ballpoint pens. It also didn't help that a co-worker of mine that was standing right behind me proceeded to burst out laughing. Leaving me to try and cover my ass instead of just being able to ignore my idiotic indiscretion. And by cover my ass I mean I just stuttered my way through saying "breast cancer awareness" another half dozen times to make sure that the mom knew what I meant. I think the number of times I emphatically and nervously re-said "breast" just hurt my cause further. The whole situation would have been less painful if I had just taken off my work visor, walked out out of the store and stepped into oncoming traffic. And to my douchebag of a co-worker that started laughing. Your welcome. I fully acknowledge that I would have laughed at my misfortune too, but at least excuse yourself into the back before you essentially highlight the fact that my name is about to get added to Megan's List.
The mom and girl eventually left the store. Luckily, they never complained. They were more than content to just leave with a look of disgust on their face. They left just like my self-esteem did when my confidence with being able to socialize with the general public shattered.
This is my way of saying sorry to all of the customers that I have wronged in some way. It won't end here, though. I will continue to say unfortunate things because I completely lack charisma and the ability to properly articulate myself. To me, this is all more of a reason to imprison anyone that can't legally buy a bottle of cough syrup without presenting ID. Let's just store them in a crawl space until they have 'D' cups. That way I don't feel guilty about celebrating breast awareness and I can misspeak without feeling like I'm channeling the spirit of Jerry Sandusky.
Deliverance
There are a lot of decent ways to extract what you want out of society. Pleasantries, friendliness and good old fashioned nonthreatening requests will pretty much assist you in attaining all of your heart's desires. You know what won't get you want you want? Being a demanding over-entitled prick. Sure there might be one or two individuals that cave to your tyranny, but the overwhelming majority of confident earthly cohabitants will just buck back.
Let me give you an example on how not to behave when dealing with people who stand between you and what you seem to desperately want.
A hillbilly that sounded like he was calling from an ice-house somewhere in the Appalachians got on the phone with a cook and demanded a pizza that wasn't shitty. That's probably a poor area to start when you're trying to place an order. If you're going to ask for something, try taking the courteous approach before you Do-si-do on over to the dickhead end of the douche spectrum. Your unsatisfied gullet and my will to live will appreciate the courtesy.
By the way, I don't want to suggest that this guy having a Southern/backwater accent in any way altered our attitude towards assisting him. I'm just saying that being a prick and sounding like a middle aged man that makes love to his livestock is not the way to score a positive response. I'm not saying that someone with an East Coast accent would garner an alternative response, but fully pronouncing your words and not sounding like you have a mouth full of Copenhagen will probably always net you at least a neutral response.
Anyway, the man terrorized our female insider for a good handful of minutes with demands that involved wanting a pizza with everything on it but double the portion. That meant his pizza was going to be uncookable and cost somewhere between $25 dollars and a small moped. Both of which he was none too pleased to hear. To which I say, what do you fucking expect? I don't go into a Lexus dealership and....well, they probably wouldn't let me into a Lexus dealership, but if I stole a suit, had a bank account with a positive balance and snuck in through the back door, I wouldn't ask for a half million dollar Nurburgring if I couldn't afford it. And I definitely wouldn't tell them it better not suck and then offer them my 2012 Civic as equal trade. As valuable as the jizz stains in the back seat of my car are, and as posh as the permanent smell of pizza might be, I don't think they'd fancy me wasting their time with a completely unreasonable lowball offer. Despite this little bit of common sense, people still think haggling pizza prices is an effective method of ordering. And this gem of a mongoloid thought that being way too mad about nothing was the key to making his Alabamian math work. The insider eventually convinced Mayhem's retarded brother that the price was set in stone, to which the man eventually caved after only a half dozen or so irritating laps of lewd verbal lashings about the girl's IQ.
The confounding part of this man's abrasive attitude and inability to order without crushing the spirit of our cook was that he lived in a semi-wealthy part of town called the Country Estates. I know the name fits the accent, but the community is not country. It's suburbia for well-off whiteys. Not any whites, though. Generally the kind that have a career in the corporate world. It's usually not a home for those that chain up their pit-bulls to horseshoe steaks and beat them with a rusty tire iron like an organic pinata.
Anyway, when our driver showed up with the delivery nobody answered the door. The driver rang the doorbell, knocked, called the customer, had the store call the customer and even left a handful of texts and messages on the man's voicemail. Smash cut to an hour later when I picked up the phone and discovered that I had stumbled into a call the with the illegitimate bastard child of Fred Phelps himself. Before I even knew who it was, and well before I asked how I could be of service, this Down Syndrome version of Charles Manson demanded to know where his food was. Once I heard the dulcet tones of his southern accent I knew exactly who I was speaking with. Wait, "dulcet" is the term people use when describing a voice that makes you feel like your head's being held under water while an anonymous figure is wading in the pool behind you and taking a sharpened steak knife to the side of a bottle of wine, right? Oddly specific word, but I like it. Anyway, I informed the monster that we already attempted to deliver his pizza and that he apparently wasn't home. This is the conversation that ensued:
ME: Hi, we left a handful of messages on your phone about our driver having to leave because you weren't answering your door.
EVIL INCARNATE: I was feeding ma' horses. Did you try da' doorbell?
ME: Yes, sir. The driver rang the doorbell.
EVIL INCARNATE: What's yer name, boy?
ME: My name's Wayne.
EI: Well, Wayne, why don't ye grab ma' pizza, march your ass out to yer car and bring me my goddamn food.
ME: ....Sir, you can come and pick up your food, but we can't send another driver out to your house. You live seven miles away and we have other customers.
EI: YER GONNA BRING ME MA' FOOD.
ME: We're not sending a driver into a hostile situation, sir. You're getting angry.
EI: YOU'RE NOT GOING TO WASTE MY PIZZA. YOU WILLING TO LOSE OUT ON THE FOOD THAT YOU ALREADY MADE, BOY!?
ME: Yes we are.
EI: YER NEVER GONNA DELIVER TA ME AGAIN ARE YA?!?
ME: We will. Just not when you're this upset and hostile.
EI: IF YOU'LL DELIVER TO ME AGAIN, THEN I WANT TO PLACE A NEW ORDER RIGHT NOW.
ME: Not today, sir.
EI: *yelling and screaming* (or Chewbacca being anally fisted, I couldn't tell for sure)
ME: I'm going to hang up now, sir. *hang up*
Now, in all of this nonsense there was still a point where I would've had the order redelivered. All it would have taken is him saying, "I'm sorry. I was feeding my horses and must have missed him. Any chance I can get that food redelivered?" That's it. That's the end of it. I'm not asking the man to milk my prostate or beg, I just want to get through a single sentence without having a semi-violent threat hurled my way. But telling me to get my happy ass in my car and redeliver him his fucking food is a bridge too far. I don't know where or why people have decided to double down on being dicks when a simple "sorry" or "thank you" will reap you far more rewards than almost anything outside of a handjob and a declaration of an increased tip. I know some people will say this is me being prideful, but I say it's me trying to teach the hostile hellions of the world a little manners. Who knows if it worked. It might have cost us a customer or it might have persuaded him to toss out a pleasantry or two in the following phone call just to ensure we allowed him his order. Either way it's win for me, and let me tell you, it's oh so satisfying turning down someone that deserves to have their order discontinued. It's a bit of justice in a world chalked full of injustices. It's a prostitute beating up a John and stealing his wallet in a world where John's routinely rape their escorts and tap out on the tab. It's me getting to deny some southern hillbilly a midday brunch while simultaneously feeding our crew a thirty dollar pizza. In all likelihood it's another painful lesson that another annoying asshole is going to ignore and refuse to acknowledge. Worse yet, it's just another day in the life of an average customer service representative.
Paradise Lost
I've detailed a lot of horrible retail related rectal probings here. I've talked at length about super stoned super seniors, I've touched on Aryans hopped up on angel dust and I've thoroughly covered the affluently arrogant. The sad part of all of these horrible sects of society is that none of them hold a candle to the trauma that one little boy inflicted upon our staff's psyche.
The trauma tipped off when what had to have been an eight to ten year-old child came into our store around 10pm. That right there is ridiculous. Why isn't a ten year-old kid at home and in bed? I understand being awake at home while binge watching reruns of Pokemon on Netflix. That's something that an only mildly irresponsible parent would allow/provide. Laziness isn't my point of contention, though. I mean, I'm not that much of a judgmental hard ass. I'm willing to concede the right for parents to let their plasma screen TV do a little parenting. What I simply can't comprehend is why little Snowflake is wandering into a strip mall pizzeria after the suns been down for the amount of time it takes to watch the extended edition of Django Unchained twice over. Shouldn't Johnny be getting tucked into his Lightning McQueen shaped bed, not wandering around downtown after curfew?
I'll defend the parents a little by acknowledging that they did drive the kid to the parking lot. They simply tapped out when it came to the tough chore of peeling their asses out of their Honda Accord so they could pick up their own food. Instead of making the lengthy journey that wouldn't have even been a first down in the NFL, they sent their little errand boy to handle the short yardage situation. He was essentially the prepubescent Mike Alstott for his super lazy and wildly irresponsible parents. To further draw me closer to the edge of the cliff face that I've been teetering on for years, the kid's parents let him come in wearing a flat billed hat that read "DOPE." Now, who would allow the fruit of their loins to wander around in a fitted cap that's championing an illicit drug? I don't give two shits that it's everybody's favorite supposedly harmless drug. I mean, it only causes a third of the population to give up on life, collect welfare and lifelessly watch shitty anime while eating junk food that's actually called "Munchies." Think about that, they actually made what is essentially a salt lick for losers that's called Munchies. Honestly, can you believe we have enough degenerates that consume enough of an excess of cannabis that a company thought it would be a grand idea to release a product that survives solely based on the purchasing power of the pot fueled population?
Anyway, I should have took this kids hat, placed it next to our oven and then shoved the the little spoiled brat head first into our stove. That way the hat could have been a warning to all the other parents that think turning their kids into walking advertisements for edibles is on the up-and-up. Seriously, what parent would allow their spawn to rep a hat that essentially explains their fondness for drugs while simultaneously announcing their inability to be present in their little shitheads life? If my kid came home from third grade sporting a hat that supported hash I'd try and shove him back in his Mom's cooze, because God knows he came out underdone. Any kid of mine would have at least had the wherewithal to remove an article of clothing like that before he made it home. And I definitely wouldn't let my kid, who hasn't eclipsed the single digits in the age department, run errands for his father while sporting a ball cap that announced my inability to parent. I'd hope Wayne Jr. would at least put in a little effort when trying to display his dislike for daddy. You know, like not giving me a fashionable fuck you from the passenger seat of the family sedan.
Of course the kid's style made perfect sense considering he strolled on into our store and asked, "Are you guys still open?". I guess the giant fluorescent open sign that flashed so hard it would give Stevie Wonder an epileptic seizure definitely wasn't enough of a clue. The fact that we had an eighteen inch monitor six feet from the customer's face saying his order was ready was another secret shot at pulling the wool over the kid's ingenious eyes. Oh, and we just love standing by the counter welcoming people to the store after hours. It's a fun little game we play to try and confuse our customer base.
Seriously, for the love of all that is holy, parents, please start parenting. I'm not asking you to raise a Rhodes Scholar. I'm just hoping that we can remove the ganja related gear from our grade-schoolers and successfully tuck them into bed before midnight. Is that asking too much?
Dazed and Confused
I feel the need to divulge a story that I couldn't squeeze into any of the chapters in my next book, Why You're A Terrible Co-worker. I just didn't have time to touch upon the attempted relationship conundrums that occur at the workplace, so I'll address that topic right here.
We've all tried to pick up on fellow co-workers. I'm essentially as Asexual as a Crayfish and yet I've still successfully managed to wrangle in a fellow co-worker of my own. Okay, she wrangled me in, but to my credit we still ended up back at my place on my frame-less mattress that conveniently sat on the faux wooden floor of my room. If you factor in all that excess posh comfort (semi-homelessness), I'd say that that counts as a seductive win for me. Sure, it was her effort that led to my sexual victory, but I had to have done something right considering I wooed her despite being suave-less, broke and still living with my parents.
Anyway, this story goes out to an insider/cook that we used to have that also attempted to seduce a fellow co-worker. The gentleman I'm referring to had it bad for a seductress that was miles out of his league. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for shooting for the stars. It's just that when you're a toothless, high school dropout that's addicted to meth, maybe you should recalibrate those sights and shoot for someone that doesn't look like she's appeared in softcore porn. I'm not saying don't give it a whirl. Quite the opposite. I'm sure rejection is a whole hell-of-a-lot less awful when you're higher than the mortician that autopsied Heath Ledger. I'm just saying, go into the bathroom of your flophouse and practice what you're going to say into a mirror/the broken bottle of Boone's Farm that's sitting on the reservoir of your toilet. That way you'll be well versed when the time comes to actually spring the question on the chick that's ultimately going to reject you. Or just skip the practice by seeing if the 17 year-old female model in the making is even interested in communicating with you. You can do this by tossing out an innocent invitation to something horrible for you, but enticing for your ladies estrogen laden veins. I don't know, maybe invite the chick to something like the inevitable Broadway version of 50 Shades of Grey. If she bites and accepts, backtrack and try to get her to go to the Marvel virtual reality Avenger experience. You know, that touring interactive show where virgins pretend to be Captain America in all the nerdy glory of 3-D. If she wavers, go back and meet her in the middle. Maybe something like a trip to a middle-of-the-road oriental restaurant like the Jasmine Bistro. It'll make you seem willing to compromise, and you won't have to have a duffle bag worth of smelling salts to make it through the show. It's like fishing, you have to set the hook and then gently real in the catch. You can't start with pretending to be Iron Man. You have to play your catch and tire her out until she gives up the fight and decides to join you as a sexed up Jubilee.
You know what you shouldn't do? Ask the girl of your dreams if you can live in the hayloft of her barn. That's exactly what my coked up co-worker did. Sadly, it wasn't a joke. He was borderline homeless and his only transportation was a skateboard, and despite it all, he still had the confidence to toss out that slightly rapey question in front of everyone. I'm not pretending to be the written equivalent of Loveline here, but I'm pretty sure even if I was a 29 year-old virgin that had been stranded pornless on a Cuban island with only hairy Dominican men my entire life, I'd still know better than to ask a coital killing question like that. I'm not saying don't try and live in her loft. Just work your way up to that. Maybe start with going to Starbucks and then on the third or fourth date hit her up with your unwavering desire to deflower her in her woodshed.
Now that I think about it, feel free to ask these sorts of sexually deviant questions. All guys should. It'll make my receding hairline and love handles look like dimples and a huge dork. Also, feel free to get hopped up on heroine before you make your move. You're just making my frame-less bed look like a pillow-top mattress that's been covered in fresh flowers and a fifty spot. Seriously, keep up the good work, boys.
One for the Money
You know what's better than selling a book? Having a sixteen year-old tell you that he's using your novel for a high school book report. Actual unit sales rank a distant second to the knowledge that an English teacher with a masters in education and a minor in Native American Studies is going to get the lowdown on the size, shape and circumference of my love stick. To be fair, if you crammed all of my phallic references end to end it would only amount to about twenty pages worth of non-stop material. I think the real off putting part is that the other 310 pages are dedicated almost entirely to racism and well thought out plans that involve eugenics and chemical castration. I'm sure the 57 year-old female intellectual that's dead on the inside will appreciate the glue that holds all of these wildly intolerant statements together, too. In my humble opinion, there's a certain literary majesty in replacing nearly every pronoun and conjunction with an insult that's prefaced with foul language.
If only I could be there to see the reaction on the teacher's face when she is debriefed about how I was motor-boated by a set of shirtless minors. I definitely think the liberal hippy with the dream-catcher around her neck will really be sold on the symbolism I include in my Twain-esque descriptions of the non-tipping tendencies of minorities.
Seriously, I'd be willing to give this kid his money back if he provided me with the breakdown on the grading of the paper. I'm assuming the teacher will simply break a red sharpie over my paper and then light it on fire in an attempt to cleanse herself of the clear-cut classlessness in my academic-less approach. No matter how she'll cleanse the knowledge of my book from her brain, I definitely think this kid's grade and this teacher's reaction would be worth far more than the extra ten-spot in my bank account ever would be.
Drive Angry
I've been fortunate over the course of my life to have never experienced getting my car towed. I've just never been blessed with one of my many beaters blowing up, and I've also never been retarded enough to earn a repo. It's kind of surprising that it's never happened. I mean, you know how many times you have to park in less than official spots when delivering? Seriously, Ramona's got a half dozen apartment complexes that you can't drive into and that have literally zero street parking. So really what is there to do besides park illegally? Usually this involves parking in managerial spots, postal truck spots or reserved tenant spots. Never handicapped spots, though. The fire lanes are the way to go. They're wide open for easy and unopposed access. Meanwhile the handicapped spots are heavily monitored and earn three times the fine of a fire lane. Makes sense though, right? I mean, let's really come down hard on the pizza guy that might be preventing someone with type II Diabetes from parking in the front row at Applebee's, but if we all collectively box out the fire department from accessing that crucial fire hydrant then all's forgiven. I really don't understand why allowing town square to be engulfed in flames is a forty dollar fine, but preventing someone that's 4' 11" from easy access to Walmart is a four hundred dollar fine. It just makes no sense.
I'm sure you can guess where this story is going. I was delivering to one of our less than luxurious apartment complexes and found only one spot available. A numbered spot, which means it was a reserved spot for a tenant. Not that big of a deal. I would park in reserved spots all the time, because what's the harm? Worst case scenario is a tenant has to wait the amount of time it takes to send a dick pic to their wife's sister to be able to pull in and park. Also, the odds of the people coming home in the exact three minutes that you're milling about the grounds is almost nonexistent. I mean, I'm just dropping off some food and leaving. I'm not bivouacking outside the pool area in hopes of scoring some primo Filipino tail. I want to leave as much as you want to park. Trust me. As delightful as your rusted over, no net basketball hoop with the homeless guy napping under it is, the comfort of my car's AC and the entertainment of the SVP & Russillo podcast slightly edges out getting cozy in your carport.
On this particular delivery I parked, went to the apartment, delivered the food and headed back to my car to make my exit. It took me maybe a grand total of a minute-and-a-half. Still, when I was headed towards my car I noticed I was blocked in by a Ford Aerostar that on closer inspection looked like it had been greased up in pigs fat, fucked and then lit on fire. It was like a smaller, more white trash version of the Breaking Bad RV. Except I'm pretty sure the owner's of this beast cooked and consumed far more crank than Cranston and his cohort ever did.
I proceeded to do what anyone in my position would do when blocking somebody out of their own spot. I apologized profusely and scurried to move my car. That's when the methed out monster of a she-beast that was piloting this loser landrover removed all 300 pounds of each ass cheek from her car seat and got in my face. She then proceeded to scream at me in all her toothless glory about how she was just going to park behind my car so I couldn't leave, that way she could get me towed. Sensible reaction, right? Seriously, why the hell was this bitch so hellbent on getting home anyway? I'm going out on a limb and guessing Bradley Cooper wasn't sitting in a banana hammock patiently awaiting Ursula's return. I'm guessing there's a much better chance that what was waiting for her looked like the corpse of John Goodman passed out on a mattress that fashionably resided on the cement floor of the apartment's living room.
For once I didn't take any shit. Well, I took less shit than usual. I said, "I'm sorry, but was the two minutes that I was parked in your spot really worth getting that worked up about? It's obvious I'm just delivering a pizza. If you move your car I'll be out of your hair."
Naturally, my hard hitting honesty was met with a calm and collected response. By that I mean she said, "You can't just fucking park wherever you want. You're so lucky I'm going to move my car for you. Don't ever park in my spot again."
Now listen here, bitch. I know where you live. That's not a threat. It's just a reminder that if I was insane I could retaliate. Luckily, I'm a pushover. She doesn't know that, though. For all she knows I'm delivering pizzas cause I'm down on my luck and need something to support my tweak habit and cover the cost of my side job that includes burying hatchets in the heads of hobos. Seriously, shouldn't we all think about what we say to strangers? Maybe we should all think about forgoing the freak outs so that the potentially crazy person that was being screeched at doesn't meander on back after work and return to the scene of the crazy crime with a cutlass and a bone to pick.
Instead of being rational she just did that exaggerated inconvenienced sigh move that people with a lack of priorities put to use on an almost daily basis. It's that deep breath that makes it known that ISIS and the uni-bomber all look like Jesus Christ reincarnated compared to my rebellious reserved parking ways. She then proceeded to spend seventeen minutes trying haul all seven loads of her fat ass up into her Aerostar, all while making the proclamation that she was going to call the store and complain.
Shouldn't this conversation have gone something like this:
ME: Sorry, didn't mean to take your space.
THEM: No worries. It was only a minute.
ME: Thanks for understanding. Take care!
THEM: You too.
That's how this would of went down in a civilized world. But no, it just can't go that way. Life can't make that much sense. Instead we all have to act like toddler's throwing temper tantrums. This is the epitome of the motto Why You're Terrible. Why we're all terrible. Why we just need to think about what we're doing. Why we need to bring back chemical castration. Why I need to stick push pins in my ear drums to lessen my pain. Why I need to go bowling right now to blow off some steam.
The Ringer
I have a semi-serious question that no one has been able to adequately answer for me. How am I supposed to react when I deliver to a customer's house and there's a handicapped child screaming at me? Am I supposed to ignore the hollering halfwit and focus on the adult that's taking care of the transaction, or am I supposed to engage and say hello? It's never clear because the parents never acknowledge their special little spawns wailing. I mean, I'm sure mommy is used to their touched little tykes tantrums, but I'm not. I'm not saying that these affected little adolescents should be crate trained, but would hermetically sealing them in the hallway closet for the time it takes me to drop off your food really be all that much of an inconvenience? I mean, I'm sure there's an unfenced pool area that they could be rollerskating around that would satisfy everyone involved. That, or the parents could always just try and sooth the soul of their troubled child by simply acknowledging their heir's elevated level of alertness. A pleasant pat on the back from memaw would be the preferred option, since the potential calming effect would assist in making me feel like I'm not responsible for inciting a riot turned stroke. A simple, "You're okay" or, "Tell the pizza man thank you" would go a long way in making me a magnitude more comfortable. Seriously, just go the Seaworld route and toss the kid some treats when he or she performs well. You know, like when the trainers reward their dolphins with a fist full of anchovies for doing a front flip in front of a crowd of people. It's like that. Just keep a couple of peanut butter cups chambered and ready to go and when your little half melted snowflake says, "Thank You" you can hit your little pocket clicker and toss a Gobstopper their way. Win-win, right?
If you think I'm being insensitive then let me tell you about a delivery of mine. I delivered to a nice middle-class home and had a very attractive mother in her mid-forties answer the door. Right when she cracked the door open and said hello I heard a very special brand of bellowing coming from a troubled teenager that was about ten paces behind the mom. The kid wasn't throwing a fit or anything. She was merely hollering a hello my way and telling me I should come on in. Not an inherently awful action, the problem was she repeated herself a cool hundred times at a tinnitus inducing tone. I'm a moderately antisocial/uncomfortable conversationalist with mentally healthy individuals, so you can imagine the confounding feeling I was faced with when it came to deciding whether or not to initiate a conversation with the confused child or let the screaming slide. Instead of making the first move I waited to see what the mother would do and I figured I'd sort of piggyback on her reaction. To my dismay the mom simply said, "Hi. Don't worry. She's friendly. How much do I owe you?" How am I supposed to react to that? Instead of simply breaking the ice by introducing me to her daughter or by telling me to ignore her, she basically stated that I don't have to worry about her semi-feral child escaping and going all 28 Days Later on my inner thigh. I'm pretty emotionless and even I think that referring to your seed like she's a snarling schnauzer is a bit of a callous move.
I'm not saying that the mom should embrace the screaming or that she should encourage non-productive communication with strangers. God knows I rather make change at a distance and save my eardrums from the rending that the girl's retarded roars were giving me. I simply want to know if ignoring the child is the way to go, or if it's better to acknowledge the child even when the parents don't seem to?
Sin City
I like delving into the reasons behind the curious and questionable decisions that people make. For example, I was delivering to a customer that had written instructions on an internet order that detailed how I should arrive with his 40 piece platter of wings balanced on my head. Hilarious stuff, right? It just astounds me that an adult actually took the time to write in something so juvenile. What on earth would compel even the most awkward social misfit to enter this Paul Blart-type of comedic gold? Now, I understand there's a level of anonymity to internet ordering, and sometimes that isolated feeling leads to a social outcast using their lack of creativity for evil. I mean, Don't get me wrong, it's not like he demanded that I roll his hot wings around in broken glass and deep throat the larger pieces like a coked up Jenna Jameson. I'll even take a step back and say that what he did wasn't exactly evil. I mean, generally I only toss the word evil around when I'm talking about Stalin killing 22 million Soviet citizens, or when I'm referring to The Walking Dead writers not killing off Rick's son. Seriously, you had your out in season two. Why wouldn't you let that hunting accident lead to the official icing of that adolescent abortion of an actor? That's evil. What this wing loving winner did was simply a confounding time suck.
This is where loved ones in my life always chime in and tell me that dancing for the amusement of customers is all just a bit of harmless fun. And well, it generally is. Most customers leave their humorous feedback while stoned and sitting on their Lil' Wayne themed Lovesac and leave it at that. This special customer decided to up the ante and wait until I pulled up to the hotel room that they were living in and then proceed to drop a slew of strongly, albeit poorly worded jabs about how I didn't roll up to his unit with the wings on my head. This kind of follow up is when a comment goes from Tosh.0 kind of unfunny to full-blown Broke Girls on Telemundo sort of shit. I guess I could have taken a little solace in the fact that this guy turned out to be living in a rundown hotel with three other dudes, but in a way that kind of knowledge hurts more. His lowly status yet emboldened demeanor more than makes me question my lot in life, because unless he thought he was still winning in the game of life, why would he feel compelled to holler nonsense across a crowded parking lot? This is a guy who has unwavering confidence about his superiority despite being strung out on opiates and on week three of being stuck sleeping three sausages deep on a single king bed. It's a discouraging notion to think that we're in a tight battle from a class warfare standpoint.
Self-esteem issues aside, I just want to know why anyone would initiate this kind of conversation? At what point did he deem that being condescending was going to be good fun? I'm trying to grind my way through a day that involves creating and delivering pizzas that look like a spare tire and taste like AstroTurf, and yet he's decided that that's somehow not punishment enough. Are these soulless junkies trying to elevate their position by bringing those around them down, or are we just all so bored with our lives that hollering instructions at the employed seems like an enriching experience? In fairness, I'm guessing this guy's ignorance might have had something to do with the bathtub full of black tar that I'm sure they were getting ready to steep themselves in, but this problem crops up among customers of all income and intellect levels. Rich or poor, smart of affected, there seems to be no difference in the way that we're treated on an order by order basis. It just seems like there's an ever growing egotistical segment of our society that feels like we're a vagina shaped pinata that's begging for some rough trade. All I'm saying is use a little common sense and ease back on the douche bag throttle. Everyone will be happier for it.
Now that I think about it, next time, just skip telling me where to put the wings and go straight to telling me to stick my dick in our deep fat fryer. At least then the physical pain would stop the emotional pain you and your stoned lackeys are intent on injecting into my already unfortunate life.
Rugrats Go Wild
I don't mean to brag, but once upon a time I worked my way up from an usher all the way up to a projectionist for a chain of semi-popular theaters. With my elite status and quasi-promotion came the task of using a twenty foot pool skimmer to change the movie marquee on the outside of our building. The purpose of having a javelin with a bathroom mat suction pad stuck to the bottom of it was that it assisted in placing over-sized novelty letters along the front banner of the theater so that people could drive by and know what's playing. First off, how antiquated is that? Who drives by their local AMC to see what's playing? Don't we all have these things called computers and smartphones in which we can see the times and showings that are convenient for us with a simple click of a button? I mean, who really has the scheduling flexibility to just meander on into a theater after seeing that Spring Breakers is playing? I mean, I know seeing a half-naked coked out Selena Gomez is enticing, but don't people have these things called jobs and families that they have to attend to? Or is three hours and $15 really that easy to squeeze into the average persons day?
Anyway, I always tried to get the movies spelled out as quickly as possible, because who wants to spend four hours lining up 132 characters on a banner that's suspended twenty three feet in the air? I never knew what movies our theater was going to get, so the managers I worked with would always provide me with a diagram that detailed what was playing, the layout of each title, and the exact way each film was spelled. As you can imagine, theater managers aren't exactly light years ahead of their subordinates. They're kind of like a combination of Anna Faris from Scary Movie and Seann William Scott from American Pie. I mean, obviously the managers weren't that smart, but if you stuck both Anna and Seann in a juicer, added gasoline and lit the remnants on fire you'd be close. That's why it makes sense that one time the living embodiment of Stifler thought it would be cute to give me the movie layout with the movie Rugrats Go Wild spelled as "The Rugrats Gone Wild." Not that big of a difference, right? Sure, one is the actual title of the movie and the other is a porn series that runs eight hours worth of late night ads on Comedy Central. But really, who am I to second guess my bosses? It's not like I'm an avid connoisseur of all that is Rugrats either. I'll admit that watching one year-olds banter about needing to be changed gets me rock hard, but I just never made a concerted effort to DVR that particular show. And by DVR'ing I mean recording the episodes onto a VHS tape that's been taped over so many times that everything just starts to bleed together into a single stew of broken dreams and magnetism.
I knew Rugrats was a show meant for kids with learning disabilities, but that's as far as my knowledge went. So I went to work, applied the letters to the banner, and proceeded on with my day as if nothing was amiss. In retrospect thinking that Nickelodeon was being clever and poking fun at the amateur porn industry was probably a foolish oversight on my behalf. I hardly ever over think things, though. I tend to focus on accomplishing the goals that were set out for me by my superiors. I generally try not to second guess the work that my higher-ups lay out for me.
Smash cut to four hours later when our corporate supervisor decided to stop by for his once a month visit. Naturally, this embodiment of evil asked the same managers that set me up to fail to point out the perpetrator of this classless crime against children's programming. The managers casually threw me under the bus, accepted zero responsibility, and watched through the ticket taking window as this suit and tie wearing prick led me outside and laid into me for being "fucking stupid." This guy did more than just humiliate me, though. He continued to find new ways to call me incompetent for nearly ten minutes and only let me back inside when I was nearly in tears.
When he finally left, I came back in the theater and was met with a universal round of apologies followed by several people saying, "I would've quit if anyone ever said that to me." Thinking back, I should have told this hack to go drown himself in our pretzel cheese. I just didn't know any better. I was 16 and had never had another on-the-books job. I just thought that this was how all bosses were. Now that I'm older and more mature I would've properly told this stuffy old heart attack waiting to happen to go fuck himself. What did a movie misspelling really cost the company? Nothing. It probably got a few chuckles and maybe one complaint by an overly evangelical stay-at-home mom. Quite the crisis I'm sure. It definitely didn't warrant being ostracized publicly. The good news is this guy is probably dead or divorced by now. I'm guessing both. Maybe not in that order, though. I honestly understand getting upset about a fuck up, but does demeaning me fix the problem? Talk to me first, then we'll hammer out what happened and I'll fix the issue. What else is there to it? It would have been one thing if I took a can of Krylon and painted the name of the movie on the sidewalk in front of the ticket taking booth, but I didn't. I just misplaced a couple of movable tiles. Instead of understanding this, Kim Jong Un felt compelled to try and cause another person to paint their hair orange, claim they're the joker and shoot up another Coloradan, or in this case, Californian theater. Seriously, bosses, you can talk to us like we're adults and not like we're your incontinent beagle that just shit on your shag carpet. Trust me when I say you'll reap the rewards of your mental charity for years to come in the form of loyalty, dependability and hard work. Otherwise, depending on the employee, you might just discover where your pissed off peon wants you to insert the double disc Blu-Ray of the Rugrats movie. Better yet, you might find out exactly where scrawled out across 27 feet of real estate on the marquee in front of the theater.
Girl, Interrupted
Delivering pizzas wasn't my only horrible gig. Another under-appreciated job that my soul suffered at was as a member of a cleaning crew for a national theater chain. Or as the company professionally referred to us as, "ushers." I love the term "usher" because it sounds so much more highbrow than it actually is. I guess calling somebody "the bitch that cleans up the popcorn that slid down the front of your chest while you were two handing it into your fat face" is a little wordy. I think it would look pretty solid on a nice eggshell white, matte business card, though.
Contrary to popular belief, the life of an usher isn't all that terrible. The level of torment kind of depends on how large your establishment is. For instance, we had 12 screens at our theater, which is decently large for a single franchise. Sure, the more screens you have, the more cleaning you have to do, but the benefits of a large company manifests in the form of a lot of down time due to the number of employees on the clock at any given moment. Then you mix in an abundance of square footage and you're golden. Those convenient traits meant that during the matinee hours when we were cleaning up the 300 seat showings of Dumb and Dumberer: The Presequel, we could simply pick up after the one quasi homeless dude that panhandled for the four dollars to get in, and then we could spend the next hour dicking around. And by dicking around I mean we would all take turns sitting in the back row of Taking Lives so that we could watch Angelina Jolie get plowed. There was a downside to this too, though. I mean, I must have seen the movie Elf and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 132 times before they finally exited theaters. They were the shortest films, so sadly they were the ones that I was resigned to watching over and over again. My other options were Lord of the Rings and Love Actually. Both solid choices, but that's a combined 360 minutes of film. Hard to engage in a little subterfuge when you're gone for what amounts to about three full usher shifts.
I know this makes me seem like a terrible employee, which I kind of was, but who wasn't at age 16? Plus, I couldn't have been all that bad. I ended up getting promoted three times. Not that I had stringent competition or anything. I just wasn't dense enough to be one of the dozen employees that decided it was a bright idea to get super baked on the roof of the theater in broad daylight while the owner was drinking a latte downwind in front of the lobby. When that's the extent of your competition it's pretty easy to surpass expectations. Another lousy self-justification for lethargy is that I still hold onto the belief that I earned my lackadaisical reprieve. You folks seriously made me feel as though I deserved my two hour long Sabbaths. You know why? Because you didn't just leave a little light popcorn and a rogue two liter bottle of syrupy sugar water laying around. Nope, those were the things that I prayed I would find. Instead I found a slew of items like this:
-Used tampons-
Where do I even start with this lovely item? This horrid discovery gave me a whole new perspective on the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Was a CGI Daniel Radcliffe flying around on a Wonder Mop really that compelling to where leaving and using the restroom was out of the question? How could anybody feel comfortable enough to swap out a cooze cork without leaving the highly populated, semi-reclinable discomfort of their almost sold out showing? Are we really getting that lazy or self-confident in our snatch related shenanigans, or do I just have way too high of standards for the hygiene of the average hottie. I guess I'll never know, and I'm guessing I never really want to.
-Casks of liquor-
Seriously, we'd find 24 packs of Keystone Light that were empty and presumably pounded. I never found liquor in the movies that I thought I would either. I expected to find a couple of handles of Captain rolling around in Jackass or Scary Movie. Instead, I found a small winery worth of booze rolling around the front row of Curious George and Wall-E. It's kind of strange considering these movies were usually attended by 42 year-old parents and six year-old children. There wasn't a tremendous middle ground in that particular genre. The only thing I can think of is that a little light alcoholism helped the average parent make it through their day of micro-managing their buttery, Mike and Ike filled hell-spawn.
-Clothes-
I once found a discarded skirt in the middle of an isle. I don't know why whoever was in this skirt decided to make a wardrobe change in the middle of Gigli, but they did. I mean, I was forced to watch the ending of that movie a couple dozen times while waiting to clean the place and I managed to stay clothed. I obviously had to cut myself with a straightedge razor to feel again, but I still managed to keep my vest strapped on.
Even though I was curious about the origin of the skirt I decided it was best to skip the investigation, because the only real excuses are fornication-style fun or fecal related fiasco. Neither of which I wanted a close encounter with.
I rarely say that anyone deserves anything in life. I'm of the firm belief that we should earn everything we receive, but in this case, and in the case of all ushers, they deserve to watch Angelina Jolie get roughed up in some rough trade. I'm not saying that witnessing a movie related rape was enjoyable, but I am saying cut us some slack because that's the only consolation we ushers have since we're usually busy sweeping up something that was stuffed into the snatch of a morbidly obese seventeen year-old.
PACIFIC RIDGE RECORDS AND WHY YOU'RE A TERRIBLE CUSTOMER EXTRAVAGANZA SALE!
As we all know, businesses generally start discounting their products during the holiday season. Well, piss on that. Who needs Black Friday or Cyber Monday when you have cheap unpopular music and a second rate book that's being shilled out by a college dropout? It just makes good sense to discount everything three weeks after everyone's officially broke, right? In my defense, I'm of the opinion that the discounts lose their novelty when everyone's slashing prices. It would be like if everyone in your town decided to bake banana bread on the third Monday of October. The culinary majesty of that delicious loaf wouldn't quite be the same after the seventh Olympic swimming pool worth of bread was fork lifted onto your lawn. That's why I'm bucking this holiday trend, missing the profitable train, and discounting several products right now. You know, when everyone's credit card is getting ready to spontaneously combust and a debtor is getting ready to magically appear State Farm-style.
Anyway, a bunch of Pacific Ridge Records CD's will be knocked down 50% for the next couple of weeks in addition to a giveaway of my e-book, Why You're A Terrible Customer. You can download the free Kindle or E-Book version right here or in the store page. No strings attached. It's all yours to enjoy and never actually read.
Merry Tuesday and a happy New-second-week-of-the-Year!
Brilliant Mistakes
Over the course of the last few weeks I've had a chance to look back and reflect on the process of writing a book. You know what I've managed to do in that time? I've reflected on the majesty of the process and reveled in the completion of a project that I dedicated over a year of my life to. Haha, back to reality. What I've actually done is focus in on the handful of mistakes I made that scream at me like a bi-polar girlfriend. I've found myself battling a bout of sleeplessness thanks to four specific mistakes, which honestly isn't a ton in the grand schemes of a 329 page book, but it's the scope of the mistakes that prevent me from comfortably counting sheep. Two of them are formatting errors that no one gives a shit about but me. They're rogue page divides. You know, the brackets that separate sharp changes in time and story. I used simple asterisks to show the divide, and I'm perfectly content with that decision. What I'm not content with is that on two occasions the asterisks decided to get high on peyote and go on a spirit journey. For whatever reason they decided to forge their own path in life and wound up one too many paragraphs away from their tribe of fellow asterisks.
The other two mess ups are a little more egregious. In one I was describing a story about the devil himself. More specifically, I was detailing how Beelzebub decided to inhabit a crotchety old man and ruin the lives of customer service representatives everywhere. I think his goal was to get me to kill myself. And I still may at this point, because when I was trying to describe what the man's thought process was as a young adult as opposed to his old curmudgeonly self I wrote "viral" instead of "virile." That little alteration may not seem like a big deal, because in a way the old man's personality was viral in the way that his vitriol and hate spread from employee to employee like a more irritating but less permanent version of genital warts. I'm also willing to admit that by the end of the encounter I desperately prayed to be stricken with Ebola so that the conversation would stop. Bleeding from the eyes and having my brain cooked like it was stuck in a deep fat fryer is a small price to pay for a little peace and civility. Seriously, though, those two letters changed the whole context of the story that I was trying to convey. I was trying to say, "Is this the kind of chaos that the old man envisioned himself spreading as a virile young man." Now place "viral" where "virile" is and try to make sense of it. I'd honestly stick my hand in a coffee grinder filled with Tabasco sauce if you could guarantee me that my monstrous mistakes would be corrected. My viral debacle pales in comparison to my last mistake, though. I misspelled the word "retarded" in a chapter dedicated to talking shit about about the mentally handicapped. It's truly irony at its best.
My editor, who shall remain nameless, deserves to be accredited with an assist for the insomnia inducing assault on my intellect. I paid her little to nothing and I expect perfection because of it. Also, why the hell do we as a society have a spell check system that hasn't been updated since my sister first got her T-1000 Word Processor in 1991. The only thing that's changed about spell check in the last two decades is the addition of auto-correct. A program that ironically does more damage to the English language than NFL CB Pac Man Jones (just watch the video). All these problems initially began when I spelled the non-word "viril" and got burned by the auto-correct that brilliantly thought that changing it to viral was best. Now, you're telling me that this is progress? I rather have my misspelled word stand on its own. At least that way the meaning of the story is still in tact. Also, I don't think I'm a country mile away when I accidentally spelled the word "retarded" as "rtearded." Okay, maybe that one's on me. Why couldn't it just be any other word, though? I would be fully capable of comfortably catching some z's if I misspelled bloviate, but no, I had to be introducing a chapter that's dedicated to poking fun at special needs children and I wound up joining their ranks seven syllables into the first page.
What I'm trying to say is, don't ever try to do something outside the box. Never create anything, don't try to be artistic, and never attempt to better yourself. People will ultimately let you down and you'll just wind up hating yourself because of it. I just needed to get this all off of my chest. I fully acknowledge my shortcomings and I'm sure I'll eventually kill myself because of it. Thanks.
The Deer Hunter
In the grand scheme of things, I understand why customers stiff. They're either cheap (black or poor), don't know any better (kids or Mexicans), or they're just mean spirited (hipsters or high-schoolers).
What I don't understand is the total apathy that exists within the lives of these people. For example, a while back I delivered to a house in the middle of a place called The Acres; a redneck wilderness of sorts. More specifically the Acres is a part of town where roads cease to be drivable and gun ownership seems to be universal. I'm convinced that the only currency in this part of town is lead and Hungry-Man frozen dinners. Oh, and '84 Chevy Novas that are up on blocks. Those seem to be in vogue too. From what I can gather, the more engine-less cars you have that were manufactured in and around asbestos-ridden assembly lines in the 80's, the higher your social standings will be among your fellow bleach huffing degenerate peers. I'm guessing there's a pretty powerful Housing Association out there too. They apparently don't allow lawns, they require at least two non-functional boats that would burst into flames if they ever made contact with a body of water, and they demand every house have at least one window boarded up with a couple of empty Bud Light boxes. Sticklers, right?
Anyway, like I was saying, one time I was lucky enough to get a delivery that led me to what I can only assume was the head of the Acres HOA department. I mean, it's the only explanation considering the address I was given by the homeowners was wrong, the directions I was given when I called for help was wrong, and the fire trail that wound its way to the shower curtain that served as their front door was so bad that I'm convinced it would've given a military Humvee fits. Now that I think about it, I'm positive that they were the president, CEO, spokesman, mascot, dictator and honorary douche-bag of the Acres all wrapped up into one.
That's all nothing compared to what lurked above the door of their entryway, though. You see, right above the front door (curtain) loomed the head and neck of a deer. It was like a gargoyle on a 11th century Scandinavian castle in the way that it cast a threatening shadow on anyone that approached. What really caused my heart to skip a beat wasn't the horns of the great beast or the eyes that were intently hovering above the spot where the front door should of been. It was that the buck's head was literally just severed. It wasn't stuffed and brought to life by an artistically gifted taxidermist. It was simply a head that was severed from the body of a deer with a bone saw and precariously set/nailed to a board that was attached to a wall. It must have been a semi-fresh kill too seeing as there was a throng of maggots, a small hive of hornets and a legion of flies oozing out of the neck of the cut. You could actually see the congealed blood and the rotting meat sagging out of the bottom of the neck and spilling out onto the board that it was attached to.
From what I've come to understand, the act of setting out a kill to let insects clean it out is a readily practiced process for those wishing to preserve the skeleton of their kill. What's not usual is mounting an unstuffed kill above your door-sill and having the insects do their dirty work where you regularly enter and leave your household and conduct pizza related transactions. I can tell you right now that the smell itself was overwhelming. I felt completely violated. It was like the smell was Jerry Sandusky and my sinuses were the prolapsed anus of a newborn babe. I'm not saying that my experience was necessarily on par with taking it in the poop shoot against your will. I'm actually saying it was far far worse.
Naturally, these people didn't tip. That's not the surprising part of this story, though. What's surprising is that these people are still alive. How did they not shoot themselves in the face while loading their gun? Better yet, how many bottles of Oxycodone did they have to parachute up their ass to come to the conclusion that mounting a rancid kill above their door-frame and then ordering a meat-lovers pizza was a grand idea?
These are just a few of the hard hitting questions that we may never know the answer to. It's probably a good thing too. I'm guessing that the answer would probably make me envy the deer. It had the easy way out. It didn't have to co-exist with these monsters.
Hotel California
I had another uncomfortable experience this week. I delivered to the Ramona Ritz-Carlton. At least I think it's called The Ritz, The Ritz is the hotel that's known for sheltering illegals and encouraging pedophilia, right? No? Hmmm, maybe I have my hotel chains mixed up a bit. Either way, I got a delivery to one of our finer establishments here in Ramona. Let me back up a bit here. I think I'm giving our town's humble Inn a bad rap. Regardless of the number of amateur chemistry sets they have brewing in the bathtubs over there, they deserve a little credit. I mean, they do offer complimentary cigarette burns on every bed spread and a light glaze of semen on every ceiling. Those perks only come in the presidential suites, though. The standard rooms only include a legless cot that sits on a dirt floor next to a pale that's either an ice bucket or a crapper. I haven't figured out which. On the plus side, they do have a lovely Koi pond for everybody to enjoy. Well, I guess raw sewage being pumped into a drained pool isn't exactly a Koi pond, but what goes in there does float!
Sadly, my destination wasn't one of the Inn's classier clients. I was missing out on the slew of Exxon Oil moguls that frequented the more luxurious suites. Instead, my destination was the manager's office. Hold up, Exxon Oil mogul is street slang for guys who slam black tar heroin, right? No? Man, I'm getting a little mixed up today.
Anyway, the hotel always ordered food from us. It was always the same person too. A hipster looking douche-bag that had to be in his mid-twenties and who apparently felt obligated to stiff every single delivery driver that was lucky enough to grace his lobby. The difference is, this time there was actually some semi-reputable looking customers checking in when I arrived. Usually I walked in and interrupted a toothless hobo or two that would be brandishing a sharp stick while haggling with the desk clerk about how much it would cost to rent one of the fancy legless cots that everyone was always raving about.
The reputable customers that were in front of me appeared to be a married couple that must have been close to 70. Not that that matters, because I politely did what I always did, I waited for the customers to successfully check in and then I moved up and accepted the usual goose egg that I was more than accustomed to.
The elderly couple were on their way out of the lobby with the Skeleton Key to their room when they noticed the zero spot that I was netting from the clerk. Quick tangent; I think I'm handing out a little too much credit by calling the guy that was manning the front counter a "clerk." When I think of a clerk, I imagine a suit and tie wearing gentleman that's not trying to mainline pasta alfredo sauce with a IV drip. This particular "clerk" was a high-school super senior with cut-up designer skinny jeans and a size-too-small Bright Eyes T.
Anyway, the husband of the older couple started digging around in his wallet and then proceeded to hand me five bucks and say, "I understand. My son used to be a delivery driver. He saw all kinds of crazy things. Have a good night." At first I refused the money, but after the man insisted I thought it would be a win win for me. I'd net a few extra dollars and I would get to humiliate the desk flunky by showcasing just how much of a cheap fuck he actually was. Right after the desk jockey witnessed the transaction between me and and the older gentleman, he hung his head in dismay and said, "Thanks, but don't worry about tipping the driver. This sad incident has really opened my eyes. I'll make sure to take care of this hardworking and surprisingly fit young driver." Wait a minute, I think I might have mis-remembered a detail or two here too. Oh yeah, he never said any of that. The counter cock simply nodded, double checked to make sure he did in fact stiff me, and then said, "Late!" as I walked out the door with the hard earned cash of one of his customers. He really couldn't care less that I was getting a handout from a couple that was celebrating their diamond anniversary by staying at a hotel that I'm positive has claimed the lives of at least a small strip club worth of escorts. Think about that. Shouldn't anybody with a pulse feel guilty about allowing an incontinent couple with cataracts to tip a driver for a meal that they're not even privy to? The lobby lackey should've said, "No. Don't worry about it. I'll get him. Thanks anyway." Instead he just gave me a head nod and a look that screamed, "You got lucky this time, I hope you're looking forward to the ramrodding I'm going to give your wallet the next time I see you."
Seriously, come on people. We can't really be going down this hellish highway of incivility. We simply can't allow card carrying AARP members to cover our tabs. As the youth of this country we should be doing these kinds of financial favors for them. We're supposed to be garnering wisdom from these sages. Not garnishing their wages so we can choke down a oven baked, fudge filled brownie while we're on the clock.
Official Reject
I recently got into an argument with a customer about free food. I don't know why, but every so often customers seem to muster up the courage to ask for free handouts before they even place their order. I'm not talking about fixing orders that we screwed up or addressing the needs of customers that have some legitimate gripe about our service, these customers simply decided that they deserved something for free solely based on the fact that they existed in the same zip code as our franchise.
The most recent customer to demand free goods told me that he wanted our supreme pizza. I read him what came on the supreme and he informed me that it sounded good but that he wanted to add anchovies to the pie. I told him that that would obviously cost extra, to which he replied, "Why? I told you I wanted a supreme." I just stared right at the snake tattoo that looked like it was etched into his jugular with a rusty X-Acto knife and sighed. I then moved past his MS-13-like appearance and proceeded to tell the man that if we included anchovies on every supreme pizza, we'd have a lot of dissatisfied customers. I mean, let's face facts. Most families would prefer that we left the trout bait off their bi-annual pizza related order. His response was as predictable as it was disappointing. "That's why the anchovies should be free, bro. No one likes them. I'm doing you a favor by ordering them."
First off, great logic. That'd be like me saying that I should be entitled to free blowjobs by every chick with a BMI over 42. I mean, nobody really wants a hummer by a broad that has Type II Diabetes and clocks in at around the same weight as my Honda Civic, so shouldn't they just give me one for free? Also, no one likes the San Diego Padres, so shouldn't Mr. Padre pilot the Good Year blimp over to Ramona and make it rain some season tickets? Who really wants to watch the worst team in the MLB anyway? Friar Tuck should get his fat ass in gear. I want a Polar Vortex-sized storm of tickets drowning out the better part of Southern California.
You know what would make the retarded demand of this customer more tolerable? If he wasn't serious. I had to do at least three laps with him about how I can't just give out unpopular food choices to customers that were endowed with flawed taste buds. If that were the case, banana peppers, tomatoes and feta would all be free game. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm all for giving out our more unpopular items. That very same logic means that we'll have to start charging more for our more common, day-to-day orders. That means a beef pizza would cost about $20 dollars, a ham and pineapple pizza would cost about $50 bucks, a sausage pie would require the deed to your house, and a pepperoni pizza would require the public sodomizing of your first and second born child. Hey, I didn't make the rules. A burnt out Nicaraguan with a tear drop tattoo did.
