Total Number of Deliveries: 10
Sales: $358.51
Tips: $60
Hours: 4.52
Total Wage: $21.27 per hour
On the way to work I realize I forgot my cell phone. I'm too far to turn back, but it might be worth being late to have the security of my phone while delivering. When I first worked this job twelve years ago, I didn't have a phone, no one did, so I figure I can do it tonight. But I know I'm cursing myself; something will happen.
In the 9 1/2 months since I started back here, I don't believe one new person has been hired. Now that school is out and people are moving off to college, we've had a rash of new hires. Having new counter girls taking orders combined with not having a cell phone proves to be a bad combination. My first delivery of the night says right on the ticket, "Call when you get there." Since I can't call when I get there, I call them from the store before I leave, since it will only take me five minutes to get there. The address reads 3875 Old El Camino Real, except 3875 does not exist. I drive all the way to the end of the road, turn around and start driving back. There are numbers such as 13768, so I think maybe I can add a one to the address and find it. But I can't. The feeling of not having a cell phone these days is something like the dream when you arrive at elementary school only to discover you're naked, possibly wrapped in your favorite light-blue blanket. I'm just about to give up and drive the five minutes back to the Pizzeria to call the people for the correct address, when I see one last horse farm on the right. I pull into the driveway, and there, slightly obscured by bushes, is 13875 on the entrance gate post. This must be it, I think.
There are buildings all about the property, including various stables and whatnot. Maybe they wanted me to call so I could find them in one of the barns or stables. A slight panic sets in. I park behind the cluster of cars near what looks to be the main house, and as I get out, a man and his son walk away from me and pretend I don't exist. Maybe I have the wrong place. I approach the front door, and finally I hear a man nervously acknowledge my existence: "The pizza guy's here." He repeats himself, pulling on one hand with the other, as if he might be reprimanded for bothering the boss. A blonde woman who looks like she runs a horse farm––tough, sun-worn, capable––appears at the door in a rush, signs the credit card slip, and hustles off. The whole episode makes me melancholy: my pathetic dependence on cell phones; her lack of courtesy; her nervous energy, the need to always be in motion, doing; no one can relax in her presence.
On this same run, I get an order to Sandown Way, which looks to be off Old Carmel Valley Road (it's funny, wherever they created new routes for roads around here, they left the old section and called it "Old _______"). One of the experienced drivers marked the cross street as Seabreeze, which didn't seem to make sense. So I approached it from Old Carmel Valley only to discover that, yes, Sandown does technically touch Old Carmel Valley like on the map, but there's one of these weird road blocks of semi-permanent pillars stopping me and my car. I don't have a map, so I have no idea how to drive around to Seabreeze and access it that way. And, of course, I can't call the manager and have her guide me into the neighborhood. I look at the first address on Sandown and see that it's 13005. My delivery is 13099; it's far, but not too far. So I do what I'm best at: I run. A good way to feel like an idiot: get a polo-shirted pizza outfit on and a pizza bag in your hand and run one-eighth to one-quarter of a mile through a residential neighborhood. A woman walking her dog does a double take, but I keep running like Forrest Gump. I deliver the food, and run back out of the neighborhood, avoiding eye-contact with the dog walker lady as I pass her again.
Later in the night, I get an order that's a single, medium cheese pizza with a note: "Double slice: 16 slices. Slice all the way thru." I check that the pizza is double-sliced, but I'm not going to inspect whether or not each slice is cut all the way through, which people often complain about. I think, If this lazy woman complains about the slices not being cut all the way through, I'll tell her to pull on them, like the perforated part of her phone bill, and they will magically come apart. When I get to the door, I'm prepared for a pizza slice inspection and confrontation. It would have been easier to check the pizza before I left, I know, but a point needs to be made. A man who looks like Adam Sandler rolls up to the glass front door in a wheelchair. He tells me to enter, then says to add a $4 tip to the credit card slip and initial it "TJ." I look down and realize he's paralyzed on his left side and only has the use of one hand, which he uses to take the pizza and place it in his lap. God, I hope those slices are cut all the way through. I thank him profusely, then walk out to my car feeling like a complete asshole.
On this same delivery run, I have another customer inside the Santa Luz development. I drive way, way up Run of the Knolls Road, speed limit 25 mph, only to discover there is no 8449. I knew the missing cell phone would kill me, but this is ridiculous. I pull down into the courtyard of town homes where there's an 8447 and an 8439, thinking maybe the phone girl was one number off. I begin honking, hoping the person who ordered will emerge from their house. I do some circles, pull out, and back into the courtyard before honking some more. I sit. No luck. What the hell should I do now? The Pizzeria is a good ten minutes away. Ah, I decide to drive back down to the gate guard and ask him to call for me. I wind back down the hill at 35 mph, and ask the gate guard to call. He asks for the last name instead, then returns from his shack and says, "The address for them is 8559, not 8449." By this time I've already forgotten the lesson of compassion taught to me by the wheelchair man, and I want to strangle a 16-year-old girl back at the Pizzeria. I wind back up the hill ten miles per hour over the speed limit, cursing the little girl the whole way. A nice baby sitter with the pep of a high school cheerleader answers the door, tips me $8.50 on $18.49 after I explain my situation, and all is forgiven.
I return to the Pizzeria at 9:15 p.m. and am bummed to see there are still more deliveries, because all I want to do is get off work and hurry to see my girlfriend, who is probably being twirled around a Salsa dance floor by a hunky, Ricky Martin-esque, Latino man right this minute.
After popping into Crosby for a delivery, where the gate guard types out the wrong address even though I repeated it two times, I head out to the limits of our delivery zone, to 4s Ranch. I quickly find the apartment, and the door is answered by a husky, giggling, African-American woman in her mid-twenties. It's rare to see African-Americans in this area, so this house full of three generations of African-American women makes me happy for some reason. I take the time to look at the framed pictures hanging from the walls, because, though I'm one of those gringos who claims to have African-American friends, I've been in few African-American homes in my life. This is the sad truth of growing up in America. I even remember being sort of awe-struck when Oshawn Jackson, who befriended me in high school because I liked Public Enemy, invited me over to study at his parents house while we were at Fresno City College together, and I realized it was one of the first African-American houses I'd ever been in. The Jackson 5 made-for-TV movie played on the set, a framed poster of Martin Lither King, Jr. hung above the fireplace, one of Abraham Lincoln (am I remembering that right?) was above the TV (man, I thought that was cool and patriotic), and Sean's cousin and sisters sat on the couch and either ignored me or giggled at my presence.
Now, standing here in this brand new apartment, with the carpets already stained from children's feet, I see on the wall a picture of the woman who answered the door being held by a young African-American man wearing an all-white, U.S. Navy uniform, not unlike the one my grandfather wore in WWII and my father wore in Vietnam. The woman's little girl runs by while her own mother sits on the floor holding the woman's other baby. She returns from her bedroom and apologizes for taking so long and also for the handful of change she's about to give me for the tip, and I want to say I'm sorry her man's not here, that he's out there somewhere for both of us, but instead, I say, "It's okay. It all spends the same."
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