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.
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