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.