Day 20: June 20, 2009 (cheap men, generous women, forgotten food, and being held hostage in a gated driveway)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 14

Sales: $589.77

Tips: $94

Hours: 4.48

Total Wage: $28.98 per hour

I forgot to mention it, but last night I made my first delivery mistake. When I arrived at the Crosby address, I left the car running––because it was a "cash" payment and I assumed the transaction would be quick––but when I reached into the back seat and picked up the pizza bag, I noticed the salad bag was missing. How could I have forgotten the two salads? I checked the ticket, and there they were, two half salads along with two pizzas and garlic bread. I made a quick search of the car. I remember checking the salads in the store, making sure they were right. I know I had them; I could visualize the small plastic containers, a half Caesar salad and a half Oriental chicken salad, contained within. I could even see the two salad dressing containers, one white (Caesar), one brown (Oriental). But they were nowhere to be found, and I turned to the door to face the customer's wrath. In the past, I've had customers meltdown over a forgotten dessert here, a wrong pizza topping there, even a missing bag of free garlic bread.

The woman who answered the door lacked, what they call in botany, apical dominance––she was as round as she was tall, destroying my tall and beautiful wealthy people myth. And she was nice, unbelievably nice, as I slapped my forehead and told her I'd be back in ten minutes with her salads. She even payed the full bill and tipped well. Thank God she lives right inside the Crosby gate, and I easily made it back in ten minutes and everyone ended up happy and relieved.

Tonight marks another first: the first time I've ever been stuck inside of a gate. The feeling is somehow more desperate and imprisoning. I pull up to the gate and wait. Nothing. I think it's a slow gate but I see it moving. Nope. I back up, then pull up again. I'm missing out on deliveries. Time is now more than time, it is money that I could be losing (God, I hate the "time is money" cliche). I back up again, and press some keys, such as the # sign that usually serves as a call button on these things, but nothing happens. Why the hell is there even a code box on the inside? I dial the home number on my cell phone, and each ring is more and more annoying. Pick up, pick up. I assume all these properties have cameras, so I'm imagining the kid who just paid me sitting with his friends in his father's home office, giggling and eating pizza and enjoying the closed-circuit show. A man answers the home phone and instantly reprimands me, saying, "You pulled too close. But I'll open it for you," as if he's doing me a favor and there's any other option besides opening the damn gate. Thank you.

Midway through the night, I get a sweet "three-bagger," with two of the deliveries inside nearby Fairbanks Ranch. Easy money, I think. At the first house, I'm greeted at the doorway by two life-size, stone lions, similar to the ones guarding the stairs of the Art Institute of Chicago, except these ones are seated and black. An Indian man––Ghandi Indian, not Native American––answers the door. He hands me some cash, says a respectful thank you, and I do the same. Then I realize he gave me $30 for a $28.02 order. I swallow any hateful thing bubbling in my mind, and head to the other Fairbanks delivery, where a large, sunburned man signs his credit card bill with a jolly flourish. I walk to the car holding the slip in disbelief: $3.00 tip on a $57.47 order. I look back at the large white front doors. I feel like knocking again and showing him the tip chart printed on the credit card slip for "your convenience," the one that shows 15%, 18%, and 20% tip rates of the bill. Missing from the chart is the 5.22% tip rate, which he's given me. Five bucks on $85 worth of food? Ouch.

This is the point in the evening when I say to myself, tonight is going to suck. I haven't made shit, and I'm not going to. But there's the generous souls: the woman who gives me $10 on $79.49; the one who gives me $15 on $75.45; and the one who gives me $18.00 on $94.04. I hesitate to make generalizations and say women tip better than men, but these ladies have made me a very happy pizza man (not "boy"––don't ever call me the "pizza boy"), and, despite the cheap-tipping men, tonight I've earned my highest tips for a single shift. I might even buy an imported beer on the way home to celebrate.

Day 19: June 19, 2009 (Samuel Jackson's cocaine use, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the burden of fat, and $10 parasitic errands)

Position: Driver

Soundtrack: Fresh Air on Stage & Screen vol.2   

Number of Deliveries: 10

Sales: $302.69

Tips: $37.50 (+ $10––see story below) 

Hours: 4.55

Total Wage: $18.43

Even though it's a Friday night, the deliveries are slow and we're stacked with drivers. On one of my early runs, I arrive at a house with a welcome mat that says, "A pilot and a normal person live here." When the man answers the door, I ask him if he's the pilot or the normal person. As he signs the credit card slip, with his back turned to me, he says, "Oh, I'm the pilot." I ask for whom he flies, and he says, "I'm what they call . . . a private pilot." I mention my brother's a pilot for Continental, but the man pretty much ignores me and hands back the credit card slip. This is one of the hobbies of the wealthy: flying planes. When my brother was a flight instructor he had all kinds of "rich retards" who wanted to fly planes and didn't realize it takes more than money to learn how. "Those people almost killed me," my brother says.

As I drive around tonight, I'm listening to a Fresh Air with Terry Gross CD compilation. During her interview with Samuel Jackson, he openly admits to his past cocaine use and his devilish behavior. The only reason he's able to say this is because he's wealthy and already successful in Hollywood. At this point, nobody's going to deny him a role because of his past cocaine use, even though, according to people I know who've used, there's no such thing as someone who "used to" do cocaine. Money buys you the freedom of being honest, and since Jackson still has the power to make other people money, he can say and do pretty much what he wants. If he were a poor, struggling actor, or a teacher, he would never admit to cocaine use in public. In some things, wealth puts you beyond reproach.

The whole episode reminds me of August Wilson's play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, where Ma Rainey has earned enough power and wealth in the 1920s to behave as she pleases during the play's memorable studio recording scene. She comes into the session an hour late and demands a Coca-Cola before she'll sing, and the white producers beg her to begin recording without the drink. She refuses, and when someone goes to fetch her the Coke, she says to a band member, "They don't care nothing about me. All they want is my voice. Well, I done learned that, and they gonna treat me like I want to be treated no matter how much it hurt them." Wealth, or the ability to create wealth, endows one with the power to behave in certain ways we might find unconscionable in the poor. 

Later in the night, a customer calls and tells the manager he left his credit card in the restaurant. He asks if a driver can drop it off at his home in Fairbanks, one-and-a-half miles away. The manager tells the man he can come pick it up, but he's not sending a driver out to drop it off. "Oh, come on," the guy says, "tell him I'll tip him." The errand falls to me, and I'm cool with it, because I only have a "single-bagger" at the time. 

When I arrive at the mansion, I can't pull into the driveway, because he has both ends blocked with plants in flower pots evenly spaced across the entrances. I jog from the street to the door, and a built/chubby man in his early 40s with longish black hair greets me. I hand him his card and he slips a $10 bill into my hand. I can't believe he just paid me ten bucks to drive his credit card 1.5 miles. The act pushes my tips to a respectable level, but it also has an offensive undertone that his time is more valuable than mine. At least I'm at work. I think it's the excesses of the rich that are the most fascinating yet upsetting to the middle class and poor. It's what drives shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and MTV's Cribs ("Wow! 50 Cent's entire bed end is a flat screen TV!"). 

But this man's act of laziness is more reminiscent of Plato's observation of the wealthy in his Republic: "As for themselves, luxurious indolence of body and mind makes their young men too lazy and effeminate to resist pleasure or to endure pain; and the fathers, neglecting everything but money, have no higher ideals in life than the poor." Plato then asks what will happen if the poor and wealthy are thrown together in battle, and answers, "The rich will have no chance to feel superior to the poor. On the contrary, the poor man, lean and sunburnt, may find himself posted in battle beside one who, thanks to his wealth and indoor life, is panting under his burden of fat and showing every mark of distress. 'Such men,' he will think, 'are rich because we are cowards . . . These men are no good: they are at our mercy.'"

In America, the poor live under the illusion that by either hard work or lottery luck, they someday will be the wealthy. If this is the case, then there's no need to criticize the wealthy, because the poor will only be criticizing their imagined, future selves. And if it weren't for acts of wealthy excess, I wouldn't be able to live the life I'm currently living. I'm a parasite feeding off of the rich as much as I'm feeding the rich. And the money I'm earning––which is more than double what I earned teaching at the university as a grad student––allows me my own freedom: I'm about to take two and a half weeks off and travel to Mexico, where I hope to indulge in my own excesses of food and drink and sunburn my own burden of fat.

Day 18: June 18, 2009 (killer dog magnet, 3 seconds till death, gothic gate guard, unhelpful neighbors, and missing numbers)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 14

Sales: $470.47

Tips: $67

Hours: 4.35

Total Wage: $23.40 per hour

I'm quickly becoming a dog magnet. On my third delivery of the night, I power up a steep driveway on Torrey Hill Court, and then wrangle the pasta and sub sandwich out of the pizza bag. When I turn around and approach the wrought iron pool fence around the yard, I notice a sign on the gate: a silhouette of an unidentifiable dog breed and the words, "My dog can make it to the gate in 3 seconds. Can you?" I don't know. I'm tempted to time myself, since the front door isn't far from the gate. The silhouette could be a lab or some other friendly breed that may beat me to the gate, only to lick me. After all, it doesn't say what will happen if I can't make it to the gate in 3 seconds. I decide not to tempt fate, so I return to my car and honk the horn. A nice man comes to the door and beckons me through the gate, saying, "It's okay." After I close the gate, I notice a large German Shepherd creeping up behind the man inside the house. "Stay," he commands, and the dog lies down. I hesitate, but he insists the dog will be fine. He gives me some cash, and I'm out of the gate in less than 3 seconds.

Later in the night, I whistle and bang around at a small gate before I walk through. Then, once inside, I notice the tell-tale signs of doghood: a leash on the outside table; a taped up plastic boomerang with bite marks; and a small, clay statuette by the front door that, once again, looks like it could be any variety of dog breeds, from a lab puppy to a Rottweiler. I step back toward the gate and stand for a second, whistling some more. Nothing. I approach the door and ring the bell, then walk back toward the gate, creating a big lead from the front door in case this dog can beat the 3 seconds time. A woman answers the door and disappears into her house with the food and credit card slip, leaving me all alone. And then it appears: a massive, rust colored dog with a droopy yet intimidating face. It comes traipsing down the white staircase, and as it hops onto the floor, its claws tick against the white, stone tiles. I step back. It turns toward me, and I reach to close the door, since I don't have enough of a lead to make the gate anymore. But the dog does a curious, goofy spin move, then runs back up the stairs. The woman returns with the credit card slip, and the dog comes down and repeats the shy move. "What kind of dog is that?" I ask. It's a French Mastiff. I think I've heard a story about a mastiff killing someone, and when I get home, I find this NBC News article where two mastiffs killed their owner just three months ago. But a search of dog breeds reveals French Mastiffs are great guard dogs yet nonaggressive. If there's one thing I'm learning from the rich, it's how to differentiate between dog breeds.

Just after 8:00 p.m. I get a delivery to a street that isn't on any maps. The entire complex, called the Lakes (the website has its own home page soundtrack), is new and unmapped. Driver Alex explains how to get there, and tells me I'll have to ask the gate guard where the street is inside. When I arrive at the gate, an older man, who looks more like a gravedigger than a guard, asks me where I'm headed. He looks like the man in Grant Woods famous "American Gothic" painting, only the shape of this man's skull is wider and more defined by his thinness. I expect to see a bloodhound sitting next to a shotgun inside the guard shack. I show him the address, and he shuffles through his clipboard, digging for a map, I hope. He arrives at a blank piece of paper, and begins drawing sketchy lines meant to represent roads. With a country twang, he says, "You'll go left, then pass an 'open house' sign on the left, before turning on Crescent Creek. You follow it up to the end, and it should be up there, somewhere." His drawing has circled in on itself, into what looks like a loop road containing at least a bridge or a tunnel. 

"Does that go under this road?" I ask.

"Look, I'm trying to make this as easy for you as I can," he says. I tell him I think I got it, though his map is more confusing than helpful. "There may be another 'open house' sign on your left," he says, pointing up the entrance road, "but just ignore it." How will I know which of the two "open house" signs to ignore? I think. But I just thank him and drive on. I find the route much simpler than his instructions, and locate the house after pulling into several driveways to illuminate their dark, bronze house numbers. The mansion doesn't even have a yard yet. I ring the bell, and some neighbors walking by say, "What house are you looking for?" 

"This one," I say.

"What number are you looking for?" Since there's no porch light, I can't see the number on the ticket nor the number on the house.

"I don't know the number, but it's something-69. It's this house."

"I don't think anyone's in that house yet," the man says, and his wife echoes him.

"Well, there's a truck in the back and a light on inside, and someone ordered it here," I say. They repeat that they don't think anyone's there, then continue their walk. I make my way to the back, and see a light blue Bentley in the garage. I see Bentleys almost daily, but I'm still shocked every time I see one, because, even used, they're over $120,000. I knock on the door in the garage, and I recognize the woman from the Salon the other day––she was getting a full hair treatment and manicure. Tonight, she looks like crap. Her blonde hair is disheveled and only a turquoise robe hides her pasty body. It looks like I've disturbed her lounging time. She gives me a nice tip, and I make sure the pizza bag doesn't scrape against her Bentley as I cut out of the garage. When I drive out, I pass the concerned neighbors still out on their walk, and want to yell, "Thanks for your help, morons," but I don't.

We get a little bit of a late rush tonight, and the manager asks if I can take a quick "one-bagger" to Kibbings Road and hustle back for some post-closing deliveries. No problem. Only I turn left on Kibbings instead of right, into the condos. I correct my mistake, then make a left after I cross into the complex. I'm searching for a high, even number, but I'm not realizing all the numbers on this side are odd. I spot a map, and get out to check for the address. I figure out the even numbers are all together on the other side of the complex, and make my way over there. When I get to where I think I'm supposed to be, I realize the buildings are being painted and all the numbers are gone. You've got to be kidding me. I dial the people on my phone and wait for them to answer. "I think I'm in front of your place," I say. She wants to know if I'm near the mailboxes, and I almost say, "Why don't you just walk outside right now?" but I tell them I have no idea. Then I spot the mailboxes behind me. "Yes, yes, I'm by the mailboxes." She says they'll be right out, but I spend a full minute waiting and thinking I'm in the wrong spot, and now I'm going to miss out on those other, quickly aging deliveries. For a moment, I contemplate driving off, that these idiots with no house numbers and no sense of urgency don't deserve their food, that the order will just have to be a casualty of the night. I bet I can make it out of this complex in less than 3 seconds.

Day 17: June 17, 2009 (carnies, Ouroboros, gas station nightmares, and the Battle of Salamis)

Position: Driver

Soundtrack: KPBS (NPR); Fresh Air on Stage & Screen vol.2   

Number of Deliveries: 12

Sales: $554.70

Tips: $75

Hours: 4.53

Total Wage: $24.56

It's Del Mar Fair Season, which means two things: traffic rises to delivery destroying levels; and carnies and the inland-dwelling peoples of San Diego County invade the lush coast, "where the turf meets the surf." My brother Joey, a well-traveled pilot, often says that people in the U.S. are the same twenty miles inland from the Pacific Coast to twenty miles inland on the Atlantic Coast; that is the Midwest. While county fairs provide a nice cross-section of Americans, I'm not sure the wealthy support or attend them anymore than they or their children do the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (I haven't noticed any yellow ribbon magnets or "U.S. Army Mom" bumper stickers on local BMWs or Mercedes). Horse racing season is more their style.

I end up with several coastal deliveries tonight, but manage to avoid the fair traffic by cutting north through Solana Beach. On what I think is my last delivery of the night, I notice the company car I just got needs gas. I call the manager to squeeze in an order for a toasted Italian roll, my inexpensive dinner these days, two minutes before closing time, 9:00 p.m. She tells me there's one more delivery up. "I'll be back in ten minutes," I say. 

I pull into the Arco directly across from the fairgrounds, oblivious that the fair just closed. I'm hustling, trying to get in and out so I can make that last delivery. I park at a pump and run to the payment island that looks like an ATM. I need $20 worth of gas. I put a $5 bill in, and it makes a ja-junk noise. One five down, two more fives and five ones to go. I try the next $5 bill, and it makes that weird rejection noise that sounds like an electronic "un-uh." I try another five, and it makes the same noise. No, no, no, not right now. I pump the five dollars worth of gas, then run inside to add another $15, but there's a line at least five fair-goers deep. Shit. I run back outside and try the payment machine again. "Un-uh," it says. I'm back inside, standing at the rear of a line of people buying sodas and crap that won't help their current physiques. Come on, come on, I think. I get to the front, pay, then make the mistake of asking for a receipt. The cashier is experiencing a paper jam. "Oh, wait," I say, "that receipt won't show the gallons." He says it will, and keeps trying to get the paper unstuck. I want to say forget it, but he un-jams the printer and hands me a receipt, which is useless to me without showing the gallons. 

I pump the gas, but it only takes $13.15. I come back inside, only to find the line reformed. I wait, while the cashier deals with paper jams for every customer. He sees me, and asks what I need. "I need another receipt and change," I say. His eyebrows scrunch together, but he hops to the other register and prints me a new receipt, saying, "It's going to be the same as the other one." But I need change, I tell him, as he hands me a duplicate pre-paid receipt. "You didn't say that," he says. I don't argue with him. He rings up two heavy-set ladies wearing purple polo shirts with some kind of Fair markings on them. When I get to the front, he hands me my change, and I tell him I need a new receipt, one showing the gallons. I think he wants to jump the counter and beat the crap out of me at this point. The printer jams again, and while he's un-jamming it, a carny man with short hair and an unruly rear neck beard, leans over the counter, as if he's looking for something, and asks, "You have any cereal or dark chocolate?" The cashier tells him he'll be with him right after he prints my receipt. I look over and see that the carny carries a large bag of chips and a 44 0z. soda. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. After almost slamming into a couple cars in the gas station parking lot, I get back to the Pizzeria twenty minutes later with my two gas receipts (one of which is for the wrong pump) and headache, and the manger says, "Ten minutes, huh?"

I gather up the pizzas and pasta and salad for the final order, which is now almost forty minutes old, and head for the deep corner of the delivery zone, Cielo. It feels good to be out here on the dark country roads, away from the Ouroboros-like self-consumption of the carnies and fairgoers (why do people who can least afford fairs love them?). I begin the climb up Camino de Arriba in Cielo, and I know exactly where I'm going. This Australian-sounding man has ordered before and doesn't tip well. And since it's night, I can't really enjoy the view from up here.

As I take a curve, two, massive owls perched on a small, roadside solar panel to my right, take off into the darkness. While I've seen plenty of barn owls in Clovis and Fresno, I've never seen owls this large. I didn't get a great look at them, but they had the ear tufts of Great Horned Owls, so I assume that's what they were (I'm an amateur bird nerd and get excited when I see new species). I remember learning in a Native American Religion class (of course I couldn't tell you which tribe, so I'll stick to the convenient European classification, lumping them all together) that owls are a good omen. Then I thought of the Athenians, and how they saw owls as good omens before battle, especially if they were on the right while the Athenians faced north (lucky omens came from the east). In Plutarch's The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, he tells of how an owl omen convinced the Athenian soldiers that Themistocles' battle plan at Salamis was favored by the gods, and they defeated the superior Persian fleet shortly thereafter. Later, when I get home, I'll scour my History of the Peloponnesian War, thinking it was an owl omen coming from the wrong direction that portended the Athenian defeat in Sicily, but that was an eclipsed moon. And I'll read online how the Romans saw owls as a negative omen meaning someone was going to die. 

So I clunk up the steep hill, either on my way to victorious battle or to my death. I arrive at the metal driveway gate and dial the house. After the man answers, speaking Aussie, he pushes some buttons, and the call box says in a robotic, female voice, "Access granted." This is the first talking gate I've encountered. When I get to his door, I tell him the total is $59.70, and as he hands me $80 and asks for $15 change, I feel like I'm reliving the last time I was here. He must have ordered the same thing, because the four twenty dollar bills and the 8% tip are exactly the same. Some things are just predictable.  

Day 15: June 15, 2009 (poor sports, hoodlums, H2 hummers, hillbilly houses)

Position: Driver

Soundtrack: Erin McKeown Monday Morning Cold

Number of Deliveries: 7

Sales: $296.49

Tips: $46.50

Hours: 3.15

Total Wage: $22.76 per hour

The NBA and NHL championships are over, and this Monday night feels like the coming down. What I haven't been able to discern about the wealthy is whether or not, as a whole, they enjoy watching sports. When I used to work at the Encinitas store, major sporting events made it super busy. But out here, the effect is negligible. We staffed up for the Super Bowl this year, only to have a slow Sunday. My theory is that, unless they're directly involved in ownership or making a business deal in a suite or playing the sport, or if it's not golf or tennis, the wealthy leave sports-watching to the vulgar classes. (An older couple actually came in on Super Bowl Sunday and demanded to watch, on our single TV, the Australian Open men's final, which was merely a recording. An employee riot nearly ensued.) Or maybe they have their own, elaborate, catered parties with escargot and shrimp cocktails and steaks custom grilled on their built-in BBQs, and our pizza doesn't quite cut it.

Last night, while delivering on the curviest road in Rancho Santa Fe, Los Arboles, I pulled into the driveway of what we call a "Clampett" house (Beverly Hillbillies). The fences around the small horse corrals were dilapidated––dusty brown, chewed up, and falling apart––and the lumpy "yard" was mostly dirt with patches of low grass desperately trying to survive an owner-imposed drought. The entire property was darkened by the shade of overgrown eucalyptus trees (planted in this area in the early 20th century by the Topeka and Santa Fe Railway for railroad ties, the trees proved too twisted to use when dried, but they've become emblematic of the Rancho area, and, obviously, this street: Los Arboles = the trees). I parked between the old, dirty horse trailer and the house, which looked like an unkempt habitation that could be in any country town. 

After the previous night's dog encounter, I was less than enthusiastic to be greeted by a freakish Dachshund mutt, whose body was like a fat lowrider, and a wild Rottweiler puppy. A slow-moving, elderly lab soon limped in behind them. An overweight woman, whom looked to be from the depths of the American Midwest, or my hometown of Clovis, CA, came walking out wearing a faded, pink T-shirt and tight pants. A black Chihuahua ran around her feet, yipping, while the Rottweiler puppy jumped on me the whole time I walked to the door. "Stop that," she commanded, leaning down. Then the puppy nearly knocked the pizza out of my hand. 

"Wow, you've got a whole kennel, here," I said, as I handed her the pizza. 

She let out a belly laugh and said, "You're lucky mama's not out," pointing to the Rottweiler. "She's good, but she's big." I thanked her for mama's not being out, without explaining it had little to do with luck and more with responsible pet ownership, and hustled to my car. I assume this woman must be a generational descendant of early, white, Rancho immigrants who have owned the land for a hundred years. But that's speculation. The amazing thing is that this exists in the middle of one of the richest zip codes in America, and that makes me happy.

Tonight, I have a delivery in Rancho Pacifica, a hillside development of massive houses, including the home of Brian Giles, the San Diego Padres right fielder. As I near the house I'm delivering to, I notice two women out on a casual walk with a stroller. They watch me pass, then confer with each other. I pull into the driveway, but a navy-blue Jaguar, with a University of Michigan "Go Blue!" license plate frame, blocks the round-about near the doorway. While I'm standing at the door, the woman with the stroller comes running up the driveway. "You're too early," she says, her braces creating sibilance. "You guys usually take forty-five minutes." Here we go again, I think, you ordered pizza then went out on a walk? I don't say anything. "I actually didn't want it for forty-five minutes . . . I guess it's okay. Follow me." As we walk into the garage, I tell her she can say a specific time next order, and we can shoot for that. She parks the stroller, and we cut between a bright yellow Hummer H2 and a Mercedes SLK painted the same color. On the other side of the Mercedes sits a silver BMW X5, and beyond that, another car I can't see. 

She walks me into her kitchen, and it's the largest one I've ever seen. The brown-flake granite island is exactly that, an island. A human could camp on it. Above the island, shiny copper pots of various sizes dangle in unused perfection. Her bill is $76.53, and she pays me with one fifty dollar bill, one twenty, one ten, one two (where did this come from, Monticello?), two gold George Washington dollar coins, and two Kennedy fifty-cent pieces. She walks me and my loot through the front room, which could host a half-court basketball game, and out the front door. I'm a little discombobulated from what just took place, and I count the various forms of money on the way to my car, trying to figure out how much she tipped me.

At the end of the night, the company truck I drove for one delivery needs gas. Drivers hate getting gas in the company vehicles, and many battles are fought and pink "your in trouble" slips are written because of this. I volunteer to gas it up before I go. I drive to the Chevron on Carmel Valley Road and Torrey del Mar Drive, which borders, for this area, middle range housing: 2,700 sq ft, $700,000-$800,000 homes. But this Chevron almost always has hoodlums hanging out in front. The five high school-to-college-aged dudes loitering tonight look like they could have just finished playing a basketball game, or robbing a liquor store. As I pass by them, I look at the ground, pretending the dark speckles in the cement fascinate me. I hear the alpha male––the guy running the conversation––say, "Hey, didn't he lose his virginity like four months ago . . ." I pay and head back outside, where alpha male goes on, "I lost mine when I was eight . . . ." I remove the gas pump and jam it into the gas tank, hearing, "This sixteen-year-old girl, she . . . I didn't know what the f**k I was doing." And as I wipe the windshield with a squeegee, pushing down hard to loosen the insect residue, I glance over and see the alpha male thrusting his hips and pulling at an invisible girl with his clenched fists. 

Someone told me there's low-income housing around here, mandated by the city. But I think this gas station is just another anomaly, a glitch, like the Clampett house, that makes this Rancho world a little more interesting. 

Day 13: June 13, 2009 (practicing for victory, Diane Whipple, Cujo, pet theories, and irresponsible pet owners)

Position: Driver

Soundtrack: Neil Diamond The Greatest Hits (1966-1992)  

Number of Deliveries: 13

Sales: $447.26

Tips: $78

Hours: 4.38

Total Wage: $25.81 per hour

On my way to work, I see a guy wearing racing gear and riding a bike. Right before I pass him, he pumps his fist and cheers toward the side of the road, like he just won the Tour de France. This takes place on a random section of Via de Santa Fe, and I don't see any competition nor a finish line marker. As I pass him, he continues celebrating. Maybe he beat some personal best time. I watch in the rearview mirror, and he now has both hands raised to the sky, head tilted back, and veins bulging from his neck while he keeps riding. The only thing missing is a champagne shower. Maybe some people practice for races, but this guy is practicing for victory. I like that.

Everything goes smoothly tonight, until I get to my second to last delivery, which is way out in Cielo. When I pull into the downward sloping driveway, I swear I see a dog near the bushes of the front yard. It's too dark to make anything out. Maybe it was a coyote, which are pretty common out here in the hilly chaparral, but it looked too big. It doesn't help that I read the Evan Wright piece, "Mad Dogs & Lawyers," in his new book, Hella Nation, this afternoon, which is all about the horrific San Francisco Diane Whipple mauling in 2001 by a Presa Canario, a Spanish dog bred in the sixteenth century to "pin down bulls for slaughter." This is the image I haven't been able to get out of my head all afternoon: "Alec Cardenas . . . [found] the victim lying facedown on the hall carpet in front of her apartment. She was naked, covered in blood, her upper back punctured with dog bites. Blood was splashed on the walls for about twenty feet down the hall . . . the cause of death was cardiac arrest; she had lost nearly all of her blood." 

Many years ago, while working at Leucadia Pizzeria's Encinitas store, I delivered to a house in Leucadia with a six-foot wooden fence surrounding the yard. Adept at dealing with dogs from years of delivering, I knew to bang on the gate several times and whistle before I entered. I went in. When I was about halfway between the gate and the front door, the heavy-set woman, who must have heard me banging around, opened the front door wearing only a muumuu and said, "Oh, you're in the yard," then glanced about. "Should I not be?" I said, then looked to my left to see a German Shepherd mutt peer around the corner of the house. "Um . . . it's okay," she said. I took slow, deliberate steps toward her, while the dog approached me from behind and nestled it's snout in my ass crack. I handed her the pizza, and held on for an extra second. As soon as I released the food, I felt teeth dig into my right calf. "Ow," I yelled. Now, it took a second to realize the dog had only nipped me, but it might as well have torn off my calf. "Did he bite you?" she asked as she hurried to set the pizza down. "Get your dog. Get your dog," I yelled, in full panic mode. She called the dog inside, and I made my way for the gate, my nerves frazzled from the adrenaline shot. She closed the front door and called to me as I exited the gate, "Are you okay?" I glared at her. "Do you want another dollar?"

Tonight, as soon as I'm out of the car and getting the food from the back seat, I see a large, tan dog dart out of the house through the open side door closest to me. I don't have time to think, I just react.

I should mention I have an undeserved reputation for disliking dogs. The truth is, I don't dislike dogs––I actually love them––I'm just not a fan of pet ownership, especially ownership of attack dogs. I don't want to get into a theological discussion about evolution and the theory of natural selection, but here it is at work: by choosing one animal that satisfies a human desire, unconditional love and loyalty, you sacrifice another animal that doesn't, such as a grizzly bear. Grizzly bears go extinct, German Shepherds multiply. And I also don't want to get into emotional transference to pets and how the pet industry is an obscene forty-five billion dollar monster (there are people starving out there), but you get the point. I hope. (Don't feel bad about owning pets, just acknowledge what they are and let's move on.) 

Before the dog can reach me, I lift the pizza bag and jump into the backseat of my car. The dog looks like a cross between a wolf and a lab. It's not the most intimidating dog I've seen, but I'm not taking my chances. My attitude around Rancho Santa Fe has been that if you're going to be dumb enough to let your dog attack me, I think it might be financially beneficial for me to take one for the team. But then I picture Diane Whipple and the blood and puncture wounds, and I cower in the backseat of my car. The dog circles the car, and I try to remember everything Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, has ever said, especially the part about how dogs are professional readers of body language. The dog runs off into the bushes. The people aren't coming outside, so I decide to get out. The dog reappears through the side door (he's doing laps, I guess), and just as I open the door and place my feet on the driveway, he's at my crotch, while I'm still seated, holding the black pizza bag. I play it cool and as I stand up, I say in a playful voice, "Okay, okay, that's good, that's good, boy. We got pizza. You like pizza, huh? You like pizza?" 

I walk to the front door, and the dog follows me. It's a win or lose thing when you're carrying food around dogs: either the dog's going to be chill in order to get rewarded, or it's going to attack you like a crocodile and rip the food out of your hand. I ring the doorbell, and the dog shoots off into the bushes again. A kid answers the front door and a real German Shepherd pokes its massive head around the kid's legs. My heart beats faster, but I try to remain calm, blurting out the total and thinking, Dog Whisperer, Dog Whisperer. The German Shepherd tries to get out, but the kid bends down and holds it around the neck. I'm praying the kid has the strength to restrain a beast larger than himself. He pulls it back, and his sister pays. 

I'm so dog-frazzled by now, I want to scream. They pay me, and as I get to my car, here comes dog number one through the side door, again. If he can get out, can't the German Shepherd, too? I jump in my car and slam the door, trying to calm down in my safe haven. Or is it? The Stephen King Cujo car scene comes to mind. Dog one gives me a dumb stare, and now I feel stupid. I also feel victorious, like I just survived the Tour de Dog, and I should be pumping my fists and shouting in victory, but that's not my style.

Day 11: June 11, 2009 (everything you ever wanted to know, and some things you don't, about tipping)

A.M.

Position: Server

Number of Tables: 11

Total Sales: $232.46

Tips: $49

Hours: 3.38

Wages: $22.50 per hour

This morning's serving went so smoothly, I'm tempted to quote Sartre's Nausea again: "Tuesday: Nothing. Existed." But today is Thursday.

P.M.

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 13

Sales: $420.76

Tips: $53

Hours: 4.23

Total Wage: $20.53 per hour

On this night, I wanted to write about how dumb it is when people aren't home or are preoccupied when you arrive, saying they thought they had the forty-five minutes to an hour we quote them over the phone. I got stuck at a woman's door for ten minutes until she drove up, saying this exact thing. I also wanted to tell you about the time my brother arrived at a door and no one answered for five to ten minutes, then a man showed up in his boxers, with a protrusion in the front, and said, "Thanks for being patient; I was just finishin' off my girl." And I wanted to tell you about the wonderful William Styron quote on NPR's Writer's Almanac tonight: "The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis."

But then I got stiffed on my third delivery of the night. 

Right there on the tip line, the woman drew a slash and handed back the credit card receipt. I didn't say thank you, and walked away. And later on, a teenage kid and his friends in the midst of puberty met me outside a massive mansion and handed me $40 for a $38.56 order. The main kid looked to his friends and said, "You guys got any money for a tip?" They all shrugged, then he said, "Sorry." I wanted to yell, "Maybe you shouldn't have ordered the $2.25 garlic bread in addition to two pizzas," but I assured him it was okay, instead.

And it got me thinking, How did the whole tipping thing get started? Through my half-asssed research, it doesn't seem like anyone knows, but the best paper I found, unfortunately titled, "The Case Against Tipping," by Yoram Margalioth, loosely points to 16th-century English coffee houses and pubs and later Tudor England's private homes where there was a servant class (5). According to Margalioth, the trend spread to Europe before making its way to the United States via "affluent travelers" who wanted to show "they were familiar with European customs" (5). Ironically, this custom was seen as undemocratic and un-American, with seven states even imposing "anti-tipping laws" up until the 1920s (Margalioth, 6). It's interesting that tipping is now considered an American phenomenon and in places such as Australia I've been told they take your tipping as an insult to their paid wages, though these attitudes are changing worldwide.

I've always assumed tipping served as a redistribution of wealth and a show of affluence, something like the potlatch ceremonies of Pacific Northwest Native American tribes. But as any contemporary pizza guy can tell you, tipping is capricious; you will sometimes receive a large tip from a guy in a trailer park and on the same run receive a small tip from a woman in a mansion. And then there's "Karmic" tipping by servers, who either tip well from mutual understanding and shared suffering or, more superstitiously, that a positive flow of tips will be returned to them by the universe.

Margalioth explains that "traditional economic analysis cannot explain tipping," because reasons such as "insured future service" or rewarding current service bear no empirical evidence to support them (he points out that people tip as well at out-of-town restaurants as at local ones) (7). He reasons it's more about social norms, and explains that "people tip because they're embarrassed not to" (8). He also makes an interesting argument that "tipping may be a case of negative externality imposed by wealthy people on the rest of society" (11). In other words, because wealthy people established the social norm of tipping, we all must tip, even if we can't afford to. I've seen this phenomenon in central Mexico, where wealthy Americans have caused higher prices for beer and other goods in a town they frequent––causing the locals to pay more––whereas you get the same goods in the next town for half the price. 

Margalioth, in arguing for "service charges" over tipping, explains that tipping not only creates the possibility of massive tax evasion but discrimination as well: studies of NYC taxi cabs show minority drivers are tipped less and minority patrons tip less, creating unfair wage differences in the first case and an unwillingness to give minorities rides in the latter (3). A flat "service charge" would eliminate those disparities, as well as provide a reliable and taxable income base. 

While reading my blog, my dad recently asked if I report all my tips, because I'm posting them in public. I've always seen my tips as a "gift," something private between me and the patron. But Margalioth counters this by saying that "a gift is given outside the context of a business transaction whereas a tip is given to a waitress in recognition of the service she provided to the customer as part of the business transaction of buying a meal" (25). He claims it's all part of the "service package," and should be seen as part of the restaurant's income, because "the waiter cannot provide services to the customer simultaneously as a paid employee and as a self-employed individual" (29).

The article makes me rethink my whole approach to claiming tips. On one hand, both I and the employer benefit by underreporting: I pay less federal and state taxes and they pay less FICA taxes (Social Security) plus a smaller wage than would be required if tips were absent. Margalioth counters that the employees are screwing themselves in the long-run, because they're going to receive less social security benefits in the future. But what's our moral obligation compared to the government's, who claims Social Security will be bankrupt by the time my generation's ready to claim theirs? But how can I complain about corporate bailouts and corporate welfare the way conservatives whine about social welfare when I'm not paying my fair share?

I come away from the article more ambiguous about how I should handle reporting my tips, or if I should be writing about them in public for fear of having a "negative externality" on my fellow employees and employer. 

But that lady really should have tipped. 

Day 10: June 10, 2009 (Frankenstein woman, a Jungian anima, and a man who carries a spare car rather than a spare tire)

A.M.

Position: Server

Number of Tables: 2

Total Sales: $41.89

Number of Deliveries: 2

Total Sales: $107.69

Tips: $30

Hours: 2.43

Total Wage: $20.34 per hour

Jean-Paul Sartre, in his seminal book, Nausea, writes, "This is what I have to avoid, I must not put in strangeness where there is none. I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything. You continually force the truth, because you're always looking for something."

I skipped writing about work last night, because nothing of consequence or interest happened. The funniest thing I saw was a woman riding a Vespa scooter while wearing a brand new, leather Harley-Davidson jacket. It made me wish I had my camera. And this morning, delivery was busier than the dining room (I only had two tables in 2.43 hours), so I ran two, close-by deliveries to an elementary school, which brought my total tips from $10 to $30 and put a smile on my face. 

There was this slightly profound moment I experienced this morning, though. A woman with bleach-blond hair, large breast implants and sunglasses on came in for a pick-up just before noon. Her perfume was overpowering––she smelled like an entire forest of yuck. Her young daughter bounced around on the front benches while I quickly ran the woman's credit card. "Should we get cookies for your class?" she asked her daughter. I needed to cancel the credit card transaction if that was the case and start over with the new total. But before her daughter could answer, the woman swung around, keys dangling from her fingers, and answered herself, "No, I think the pizza will be fine." Another dumb Rancho bitch, I thought. Then the (paraphrased) words of the Dalai Lama arose in my head: it is better to have compassion rather than disdain for people different than you. I stopped and wondered what was beneath all that veneer, through the forest of yuck. What drove her to such a radical, unnatural alteration of her appearance? Why doesn't wealth eliminate unhappiness? I wonder what she dreamed of when she was her daughter's age, how she saw her future. Is she living it? And then I just felt sad. 

P.M.

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 10

Sales: $341.78

Tips: $52 (+ $10 for providing a ride––see below)

Hours: 3.62

Total Wages: $25.12 per hour

At my first delivery, a man who looks like a cross between Jackie Gleason and Mel Brooks answers the door wearing the official uniform of wealthy men in casual dress: a polo shirt; tan shorts; and leather, slip-on loafers, no socks. As I get ready to leave, he says, "Do me a favor and back straight out; we've got a lot of people stuck in here." The distance between his front door and the sidewall of his property didn't allow enough room for a proper round-about––the common driveway design of the wealthy. This insufficient round-about is probably the source of some neighborhood embarrassment for him, the equivalent of buying a large house without the resources to furnish it. Poor guy.

As I drive out of the Del Mar Country Club complex, I notice two ten-year-olds playing golf on the lush course. With their plaid shorts, solid polo shirts, and baseball hats, they look like miniature versions of country club dads. Even the way they strut off the green, with that insider-type laughing, mimics the mannerisms of adult members. The only things missing are Coors Lights and cigars in their little hands. A mom drives them around in a cart, serving as unofficial caddy. I can't imagine what it's like being a country club brat. How could you not become an asshole growing up like this? I'm not sure if I'm jealous or horrified.

Midway through the night, a guy in our parking lot approaches me and asks if I can help him out. His story is that he has a flat tire on his Land Rover and he needs a ride home to Fairbanks Ranch, which is less than a mile away. I think it's some kind of con, but tell him I'll be right back after I get my deliveries. "I'll pay you ten bucks," he says in a thick New York accent. 

As luck would have it, I end up with a delivery to Fairbanks, so I give the guy a ride. He's wearing a tight T-shirt, designer jeans, and oversized fashionable sunglasses. Judging by the short, curly hair receding from his forehead, I would guess he's about forty. "I really appreciate this, man. I got a big ol' hunk of metal in the tire on my Land Rover." He holds up his hand to show me the size of the chunk, which is considerable. As he gets comfortable, he starts to open up. "Actually, I'm supposed to meet this girl for the first time, and I'm on my way down there––I'm meeting her at P.F. Chang's in La Jolla–and now I'm dealing with this. But I don't want to deal with it right now, ya know? I'm just going to go get another car. I called her and told her she might want to have a drink first, 'cause I'll be awhile." It must be nice to have a spare car rather than a spare tire, I think. When we get to his mansion, I notice a silver Mercedes SLK and a white Denali in his four car garage. The guy has a whole quiver of cars. "Here's your ten bucks, like we agreed on," he says, and exits my old car, the muffler sounding like a motor boat.

On my actual Fairbanks delivery, I shoot down a steep driveway and realize I'm facing garage doors with no entrance to the house. I back up the driveway, unable to see anything but sky in my rearview mirrors. When I reach the street, I realize they have another driveway up above––the "presentation" driveway––that curves up to the front door. They have two driveways! The woman who answers the door looks vaguely Italian. She's older but model-gorgeous, what I would describe as my Jungian anima. And she's nice; I can't hate her or her two driveways. She asks me if I will deliver to the men, who are down in the room over the second garage. She takes one of the two pizzas for her and the kids, and I'm off, back to the other driveway. I walk up the stairs to the "game room" over the garage, where nine men sit around a Las Vegas quality poker table. No one moves to pay me. I guess they're in the middle of a hand. A youngish, handsome man, maybe a few years older than I am, finally stands up and pays me while looking back at the table. I thank him, but want to scream out, "What the hell do you do for a living?" Goodness.

On my next delivery run, I'm back in Fairbanks Ranch, this time delivering to a mansion with cavernous, 20' high, wood beam ceilings. The way the furniture is arranged in the middle of the front room makes it look like a fancy ski lodge. After the Ward Beaver-like father pays me and I walk to my car, I notice they have a stone plate in the garden leaning against the wall. It has four words inscribed on it: Faith; Family; Love; Hope. In my hyper-critical mind, I begin analyzing the words of the plate. I always equate "hope" with a quote from the 5th century (B.C.) Athenian leader, Pericles: "Knowledge fortifies courage by the contempt which is its consequence, its trust being placed, not in hope, which is the prop of the desperate, but in a judgment grounded upon existing resources, whose anticipations are more to be depended upon" (italics are mine). In other words, you don't really need hope when you have a rational mind and resources and aren't desperate. I assume the "Faith" part of the equation means Christian faith, and I always have trouble reconciling wealth with the radical words of Jesus in passages such as Mark 10:25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." But what do I know? I'll just stick to loving my family.

On my second to last delivery, I can't even look in the eyes of the woman who answers the door. She is a Frankensteinian plastic surgery disaster. Beneath her stringy, dark hair, a Michael Jacksonesque nose and collagen lips, stretched into an awkward smile, greet me. Fake breasts form two, perfectly round, bumps in her sweater. Everything about her looks taut and frightening. I look at the ground during the transaction, stealing furtive glances at her face, which is more reminiscent of the 1985 movie Mask than a beautiful woman. I think back to this morning, but I can't feel true compassion for her. What's wrong with me? What's wrong with all of us? Jesus.

My last delivery of the night is in Santa Luz. I ring the doorbell, wait, then knock. They don't even have a light on and it's pitch black by the doorway. I walk out by the streetlights to see the ticket and make sure I have the right address. A Suburban and a Hummer sit in the driveway, so I assume someone's home. I bang on the door again, and a woman's voice asks who it is. "THE Pizzeria," I say. She asks again. I repeat. She asks again, and it's at this point I want to scream, "Didn't you order a God damn pizza? Who are you expecting? You live in a gated community." I hear a man's voice inside say to her that I must have the wrong house, that we've made this mistake before. The large woman finally opens the door and stares at me, clueless. "Maybe Cori ordered," she says. "Is she even home?" The guy doesn't know and sticks to his theory that I'm lost. I walk through the front door and end up in some weird Spanish-style courtyard with a fountain. The woman points me to the kitchen and tells me to wait there while she goes in search of the mysterious Cori. The man walks into the kithcen and says nothing, so I pretend to watch the Padres baseball game on TV. I'm there at least five minutes before Cori, a twenty-something-year-old girl, shows up with money in her hand. I take the money, and want to ask the guy how big your house has to be before you don't know who's in it.

Day 8: June 8, 2009 (worn out dads, alarm clock crushing jobs, the wisdom of children, and how being tall and beautiful isn't the best way to live)

Position: Driver

Soundtrack: KPBS (NPR)

Total Sales: $341.75

Number of Deliveries: 11

Tips: $60

Hours: 4.00

Total Wage: $23 per hour

My first delivery of the night is to a tall dad wearing a pink business shirt and who looks like he's had a long, exhausting day at the office. He's ordered the "Family Special": large cheese pizza; spaghetti and meatballs; full Caesar salad; and a dozen fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, all for $24.99 plus tax and delivery (a discount of $12.58). This dad customized his order a little and added a pasta, bringing his total to $40.20. I don't even get mad when he pens in a $2 tip, because, in my mind, he's the working class of the area, probably barely hanging on and paying his adjustable-rate or "interest only" mortgage that put him into this $700,000 home in the first place. He lets out a heavy sigh when I hand him his food, a long day coming to a semi-rewarding end. I thank him and feel bad, even if all my speculation isn't true, that his American Dream isn't looking so dreamy.   

On my second run of the night, after I ring the doorbell, an adorable, towheaded boy with a Gimme a Break (the 80's television show) Joey Lawrence, bowl haircut, runs up to the three-foot-high fence of the backyard and pulls himself up to see me. His dad pays me at the door, and the kid follows me to my car. He's wearing a white T-shirt with a Star Wars stormtrooper head and the words "Birthday Boy!" on the front. I tell him I dig his shirt. He blushes but remains silent. His younger brother joins him, and they watch me climb into my car, admiring me like a superhero. I wave goodbye and they scream, giving me the full rock-star treatment. As I drive off, they run alongside the car on the sidewalk, hollering and waving. I love that children have the insight their parents––who usually show a sort of embarrassed contempt when their children think the pizza man is a legitimate career choice––lack: that we are an integral part of an affluent society and somehow deserve children's admiration. After all, we deliver pizza parties into every home, every day is Friday (or the last day of school), and who doesn't love a pizza party? 

I'd like to think children just inherently understand the words written by Booker T. Washington in his classic 1901 autobiography, Up From Slavery: "No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem." I'd like to substitute "delivering a pizza" for "tilling a field." Either way, somewhere along the line we convinced ourselves that some jobs have more dignity than others. Yet, many people with "respectable" jobs crush their alarm clocks every morning and drag themselves to another day of drudgery at a job that offers them little personal nourishment outside of financial reward and a certain level of respect from society. For example, everyone says they hate lawyers, yet what parent doesn't puff out their chest when speaking of their child who's in law school? How many times have you heard people swoon, "Oh, he's a lawyer"? I've seen people light up and nearly throw themselves prostrate on the ground when my neighbor mentions he's an attorney. His main job: defending DUI drivers. Is it the money we respect or the extra schooling? Because I've had plenty of schooling, but no one respects an unpublished writer who delivers pizza. A doctor, whom didn't seem too bright in an everyday sort of way, once said to me, "I don't know how you study English. I was always terrible at writing papers." I'll take my kudos where I can get them, even if they come as backhanded compliments from doctors or from earnest children in Star Wars T-shirts. I smile while I work.

On my next delivery run, I arrive at a massive brick mansion in Fairbanks Ranch, where, if it wasn't for the large remodeling Dumpster, it looks like they're filming an episode of MTV's popular show Cribs in the driveway: a full-sized, black BMW sits parked next to a shiny, dark-blue Land Rover. The teenage kids who answer the door look like they could be teen pop idols, with their forward-wind-blown haircuts, luminescent green eyes, and hip skateboarder clothes. One of the teens calls out to his step-dad, who walks around the corner of the house, his millionaire hairdo flowing in the wind; he has that same leisurely, successful look of Virgin owner, Richard Branson. And this is something I'm noticing: the wealthy tend to be beautiful. To make this statement more scientific, all I need is to imagine a stroll through a Wal Mart, and my theory becomes axiomatic. In a couple of days, I will even hear an NPR interview with Arianne Cohen, who has done extensive research on the benefits lavished on tall people––who happen make an average "$789 more per year per inch" than their shorter counterparts. These same sorts of benefits can be found for "beautiful people," according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's research; 5% more per hour. And if you're a rich, successful man or woman and have your pick of the litter, aren't you going to choose the most desirable looking mate? It's evolution at work, and I'm staring at the results in nearly every doorway.

For the third time in one week, I deliver to the Fairbanks house with the medieval castle front door, and this time the lady from the first time I delivered answers the door. She, too, is very beautiful. She gives me a $20 bill for her $12.47 salad and waits for change. I reach in my pocket but quickly remember the Richard Branson look-alike took all my change with his $100 bill. I explain about Branson and the $100, but then remember I have a few ones in my wallet. I pull out three, and she says it's fine, really. I apologize and tell her it's bad form on my part. She flings her hand outward and upward, motioning that "it's only money." Sometimes, I guess it pays to be unprepared rather than tall or beautiful.

Day 6: June 6, 2009 (absentee pool parties, guesstimations, 360 degree views, the pearly gates, and I get bit by a goth)

Position: Driver

Soundtrack: Mahalia Jackson Gospels, Spirituals, & Hymns

Total Sales: $423.32

Number of Deliveries: 11

Tips: $71

Hours: 4.48

Total Wage: $23.85 per hour

I'm a big fan of creating personal experiments. One time, in preparation to walk across California and wanting to see how little I could survive on, I went four days eating as few calories as possible. By day four, I was down to about 700 calories per day, felt light headed at work, and bordered on hallucinations. In the same vein, I'm trying to only listen to "positive" music while feeding the rich in order to see if it will improve my outlook on life and my mission. There's something soothing yet defeatist about listening to gospel music that transcends this world's suffering, because it removes blame from those causing the suffering; it leaves the spoils of this world to those who are ambitious and secular enough to take them. But, in contrast, Mahalia Jackson's voice just makes me smile: "I sing because my soul is happy. I sing because my soul is free."

Tonight, I also keep track of the miles I drive my own car, 86, and the amount I'm paid in gas commission for driving my own car: $14.88. The 1997 Volvo 960 I bought off my co-worker for $2,000 is not the most fuel efficient car, so the 4.70 gallons of gas $14.88 buys me probably barely covers the price to drive 86 miles.

My first delivery tonight is in the Palacio del Mar complex. These are some of the less expensive town homes south of the Pizzeria, even though the price of the home I'm delivering to is listed at $825,000. In relatively poor neighborhoods such as this, the ethnic diversity is much greater. 

The ticket says to "deliver to the small pool." I ask the gate guard where the small pool is located in the complex, and he busts out a map. I drive 5 mph over the 15 mph posted speed limit, enjoying the few blossoming Jacarandas along the path. I reach the small pool and see a dad standing on the pool deck cheering on kids swimming. I hold the pizza bag up at the gate and ask if they ordered pizza. He looks at his wife, who shakes her head, then at the kids, before saying, "No." The gospel music I've been listening to can't keep me from the internal combustion of my thoughts, I hate this shit. I hate delivering to pools, or parks, or beaches for this reason. I get back in my car and start driving toward the other pool in the complex while dialing the customer's number. A woman answers. "Where are you?" I say in a stern voice. "I was just at the small pool and you're not there." 

The lady stammers, then says, "Well, they told me it would be an hour."   

"That's a guesstimation, mam. Should I just come to the house?"

She pauses, says something to someone in the background, then returns. "My sister should be on her way there. She drives a white minivan." 

I turn my car around and head back to the pool, where I see the white van pulling up. I put on my best smiley face while I hand over the pizzas and wait for the sister to sign. She gives me a $10 cash tip, and my smile becomes genuine. I'm such a sell-out, like a child who will stop crying for a lollipop.

At around 6:00 p.m., I get a delivery to the Cielo development, which sits in the hills of the northeast corner of our delivery range. It's just over four miles to the gate, but the house I'm delivering to is another 3.5 miles up a winding road. I twist and turn and push my aging car up the hill, one eye posted on the engine's temperature gage. When I reach the top, the 360 degree views of the coast and outlying areas are incredible. I even see a massive dam I didn't know existed out here. I can understand why the wealthy built their houses way up here, even if I think this development and the Crosby never should have been built based on environmental grounds. I've never read an "environmental impact report," which must be filed before any development is built, but they must read like great fictional novels, because I've also never seen a development stopped by one. After my long drive, the man of the house, who has an accent (there seems to be a disproportionate number of residents in Rancho Santa Fe who are foreign born––"papers, please"), gives me a tip that's less than 10%, and I'm less than thrilled. Damn Europeans.

Here's an interesting note on a delivery to the Del Sur Development: "Make sure you know where to go . . . she said ppl get lost and doesn't like it." I think, She doesn't like it, or the delivery driver doesn't like it? This is a new development, shaped like three-quarters of a boomerang, which can be confusing to a first time driver to the area. Many of the homes don't even show up in the right spot on our Thomas Brother's internet map. I'm tempted to call the woman and tell her I'm lost to mess with her, but I drive straight to the house without incident.

Around 7:30 p.m.,  I get another note on a delivery: "Call when you get to the house gate because the house gate is broken." The nonsensical thing about this note is that the address is located in Fairbanks Ranch, which means they have a house within the guard gate I must pass to enter the development. Are wealthy people that paranoid about their possessions that they imprison themselves behind gates within gates, or does it make them feel more important and heaven-like ("the twelve pearly gates" of Revelation)? Someone needs to perform a psychological study on the mind-set of "gating" oneself.

I get lost trying to find the house with the broken gate, because one of the phone girls put the address as Calle Sorrento, and I merely glanced at the map before I left the Pizzeria. I turn a couple circles and try to call the house––they don't answer; what if I'm at the gate already?––before I decide the street must be Calle Serena, not Calle Sorrento. When I arrive at the gate, St. Peter is nowhere to be found, and I'm assuming I'll be cast into more delivery hell. A kind man answers the phone this time and says they just moved in and don't know how to open the gate from inside. He gives me the code, which must kill him, and I now have unlimited access to his driveway anytime I want it. Sucker.

One of my last deliveries is to the Crosby Development. I ask the gate guard if I turn left or right when I reach Top O the Morning. He has an accent, possibly Yugoslavian, and he says, "I don't know. I never drive in. I think maybe left, because there are more houses that way. I don't want to misguide you." I'll figure it out. I get to the door and can see a couple watching TV right in the middle of the house, which seems to break some unwritten code of the super wealthy, whose homes usually have a antechamber-like space, complete with an elaborately carved, round table covered with a small tapestry and topiary or sculpture, for greeting visitors. The couple don't move. Out of the darkness of the hallway, three freshman-aged, high school, goth girls with their faces painted white with black eye-sockets––like ghouls––and their hair covering their faces, approach the door in a slow march that makes it feel like Halloween or the Michael Jackson Thriller video. 

They open the door without saying a word, and I let out a nervous giggle. Two of the goths circle me, while the one in the center slides a twenty and a ten onto the pizza box. When I grab the money––this is part where I'm not sure if I'm hallucinating––and the girl goes to pull the pizza out of my hand, one of the other two girls bites me in the back of the right shoulder before they all scream and run inside, flipping the pizza box sideways. They disappear back into the darkness, and I look up to see the dad sitting on top of the couch in his white robe, enjoying the show. I assume they don't want change, nor do I feel they deserve it, after treating me like I'm some form of entertainment to be played with as they please, as if I'm Richard Pryor in The Toy.

But, again, the $9.87 tip on $20.13 order does more to assuage my bad temper than anything Mahalia's singing to me tonight. I shut the front door and feel something like the black elevator operator in Richard Wright's Black Boy, who allows white people to kick him in the ass for a quarter. When Wright asks him how he can do this, Shorty replies, " I needed a quarter and I got it." When Wright says, "But a quarter can't pay you for what he did to you, " Shorty replies, "Listen, nigger, my ass is tough and quarters is scarce." 

I end the night on a delivery to Santa Luz, where I stare out toward the ocean and enjoy the near-full moon illuminating the cumulus clouds and surrounding hills. It's a perfect 64 degrees outside and silent. I get out my camera and attempt to record the moment, but the automatic settings don't capture what I see.