Day 88: August 27, 2009 (the public transcript vs. the hidden transcript)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 12

Sales: $423.44

Tips: $74

Hours: 3.70

Total Wage: $28 per hour

Although I managed the restaurant during the day yesterday (which was uneventful), tonight is my first night back driving since my weeklong vacation to the state of Washington to visit friends and skateboard and camp on Orcas Island. It feels good to be back in the saddle.

Late in the night, I get a delivery to Rancho Del Lago. When I arrive at the guard gate, I'm excited to see the elderly gate guard (see Day 68) who reminds me of my grandpa Raulston. "THE Pizzeria," he says with an excited look in his eyes. I instantly feel guilty about not bringing him cookies or something. He asks me where I'm going, and after I read him the address, he tries to call them. Three times. Two times he begins his spiel, "This is the gate house, I have THE Pizzeria here . . . " and then the line goes dead. He's getting as frustrated as I am waiting, and he mumbles something about "these people," when his phone finally rings. He opens the gate, then repeats the story he told me before but with added commentary this time. "I let one of you guys in one night and got my ass chewed out," he says, then quotes the residents in a whiny voice,  "They said, 'What if we were in the backyard and the food got cold?'" He returns to his regular voice, saying, "Like I could give a shit. Ha ha."

The contrast between the kind, passive voice the elderly guard used on the phone with the residents and story he tells me reminds me of a book I quoted in a pedagogy paper on "disruption" as a form of learning in the classroom. The book is James C. Scott's Domination and the Art of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. While the book is about cultural mechanisms for resisting domination, the two most interesting concepts are "public transcripts," which Scott says is "a shorthand way of describing the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate," and "hidden transcripts," which he uses to "characterize discourse that takes place 'offstage,' beyond the direct observation of the power holders . . . [and] consists of those offstage speeches, gestures, and practices that confirm, contradict, or inflect what appears in the public transcript" (5).  

The public transcript is the voice and shucking and jiving the guard does for the residents, while the hidden transcript is that he doesn't really "give a shit" if their food gets cold. When I was teaching, I would encourage my students to openly criticize me and air their grievances about how the class was structured and run, in order to give them a sense of "agency," or power. The more the hidden transcript makes its way into the public transcript the more likely the subordinates are to feel empowered and understood and less likely to revolt in harsh or violent ways. 

For example, think of the relationship between antebellum Southern slaves and their white masters. Imagine what was said of the masters in the slave quarters that could never be spoken publicly. This hidden transcript created a powder keg of resentment that imprisoned the masters, for fear of revolt, as much as the slaves, who became good actors. The masters often consoled themselves by saying, "My slaves and I get along well. They really like me." No, they didn't, because any relationship of subordination breeds contempt, and the only thing that protected them from butcher was the law. 

After the guard lets me in, I drive the length of Vista Lago and instantly recognize the modern, cube-like, white house I'm delivering to. The last time I came out here, a really nice Australian woman tipped me well. This time, a handsome, white haired gentleman walks out front to greet me as I pull up. He shares the same Aussie accent as the woman, and gives me $30 for a $20.13 order, saying, "Enjoy it," before heading back inside. I count the money on the way to my car and wonder why every wealthy person can't be this cool.

Day 78: August 17, 2009 (banking on B of A, Eastern Block help, and old men who are better off dead)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 8

Sales: $423.81

Tips: $42

Hours: 3.12

Total Wage: $21.46 per hour

I'm covering a day shift for a fellow driver today, and the daytime deliveries are usually hit or miss. The window for earning tips is smaller, but you're more likely to get big orders from the corporations dotting Carmel Valley. This morning, my first delivery is a single-bagger for $145.49 to a Bank of America corporate building along El Camino Real. 

I make the mistake of trying to carry the four pizzas, two large bowls of salad, the bag containing two six-packs of Coke, and a bag of large dressings all at once. I have to stop several times and set some things down to get better grips. The bag with the sodas feels like it's going to rip off the two fingers grasping it. A man helps by opening the front door of the office building, but then I have to set things down again while waiting for the elevator. When it opens, I shuffle inside, and one of the salad bowls almost slips off the pizza bag. I set some things down and rework my carrying configuration before stepping off the elevator. I walk into their office and immediately start unloading everything on the vacant lobby counter. A woman comes out of the windowed ceiling to floor corporate meeting room and asks if I can bring everything down the hall. Sure. She grabs one salad bowl and the dressings, and I haul everything else into the lunch room. She takes the credit card slip from me and pens in $10. Granted, she didn't witness the battle I had with her food getting it up here, but a 6.8% tip on a corporate credit card is just plain evil. Plus, I think this may be my only delivery of the day, since it's already almost noon, and that's when the rush begins dying.

I return to discover there are several more deliveries, so my day isn't blown. I take a four-bagger, which ups my tips to a respectable level. I'm surprised to find even more deliveries when I come back to the Pizzeria. I take a three-bagger, two close and one farther south.

I drive down the sparsely housed Santa Fe Farms Road looking for an address in the 14200s. The numbers are getting smaller, but after I pass a driveway in the 14300s, there's nothing but two open fields blocked off with chain-link fences. This is where migrant workers gather in the mornings for work and in the afternoons for the two taco trucks that appear daily. When I make it to the Carmel Valley Road stoplight, I pull over and call. "Hello, this is Eric from THE Pizzeria. I'm having trouble finding your house."

"What?" and old, gruff voice barks. "You've been here several times before."

"Well, the Pizzeria may have delivered to you before, but I never have, and I can't find your address. Are you north or south of Carmel Valley Road?" 

"I don't know," he stammers. "You should be able to find it."

"Fine. Never mind. I'll find it."  

Before I can hang up, he barks out, "It's not the first house; that's my office. Go around to the back. It's the house with the long porch." I close my phone and turn around, cruising slower this time. I repass the driveway with the 14300 address, and just the other side of it, where the 14400 addresses should start, I see a brown fence that looks like the entrance to a plant nursery with the address I'm looking for. The numbers are out of numerical sequence, then. And I'm the idiot?

The first house is a fancy newer home with a slate rock castle tower for the doorway. That's just his office? I continue up the driveway and see an older tan house with a massive porch. I take the pizza up the stairs and am greeted by a cute, blonde girl with an Eastern Block accent, who takes the food, then disappears with the credit card receipt. I've never seen an Eastern Block servant before, so I'm taken aback a little, and wonder if the choice is racially motivated. I could easily hear the gruff voice from the phone saying, "I don't want no Mexicans in my house." But it's unfair to put words in his mouth.

When the Eastern Block girl passes by on her way to the kitchen, she points back down the hallway, saying I can step inside. I stand still, but after a minute, peak around the corner to see an elderly woman who can hardly walk. I hurry to her side, and see she has signed the slip in two places but hasn't added a tip. "I need a total, here," I say.

She looks at the slip. "Hasn't it got a total on it?"

"I need it filled out and written here," I say, pointing to the total line under the tip line.

She turns and tells the old man, whom I can't see in the nearby office, that he needs a total. "What?" he belts out in that gruff voice of his. I look at all the framed Normal Rockwell coins, drawings, and other memorabilia cluttering the walls, and think he must be someone important, possibly a famous cartoonist himself. "I already paid for it," he shouts.

"Well, did you pay him for the tip?" she asks.

"What? Who says I have to tip if I don't wanna tip?" He sounds more and more perturbed.

I step forward and say, "No one said you have to tip, but I need a total on that line." I turn to the woman who's holding out the slip and say, "Here, I'll just take it like that." I still can't see the man, but I picture him behind a large desk cluttered with papers.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, "he's not feeling well today." She's kind and it looks painful every time she moves, so I feel bad when my first thought is, I hope he dies soon. Then we'll all be out of our misery. I thank her for trying, and head out the door, late to my last two deliveries.

Day 75: August 14, 2009 (even the propertied park on their lawns, the young economist, and the mannequin ghost)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 10

Sales: $461.52

Tips: $61

Hours: 4.03

Total Wage: $23.14 per hour

In Rancho Santa Fe, there are those who are rich and own mansions in gated compounds, such as Fairbanks, the Crosby, Santa Luz, and Cielo, and then there are those who are rich and propertied. Surrounding downtown Rancho and spreading to its 92067 area code limits are haciendas that vary from a few acres to tens of acres, some encompassing their own citrus or avocado orchards. Considering the value of property around here, these lands denote the ultra-wealthy. 

In the middle of my delivery night, I arrive at the gate of one of these propertied families. I'm buzzed in, and, as I slow-ride up the driveway, I gawk at the expanse of the yard sloping off into the surrounding orchards. The Spanish style mansion glows white under its red tile roof, while a group of high school girls sit gossiping on the large, brick patio. The somewhat husky debutante of the house breaks away from the circle of girls and approaches my car in the driveway. Her skimpy tennis outfit exposes much of her skin, which has that perfect, all-over tan reserved for lifeguards and pro tennis players. She asks me if I have change for a $100 bill. Her total is $83.12, so of course I have change (we carry a minimum of $20 in change). I ask her how much she wants back, and she says ten dollars, which leaves me a $6.88 tip, or 8%. My enchanted-with-the-property smile straightens to a tight-lipped scowl as I dig through my change wad for a $10 bill. Why not just toss the poor pizza man the whole Benjamin? It would be such a cool move and would add a sense of music video style to all this property. 

I give her the ten, and when I go to leave I realize there's not really anywhere to turn around on the driveway. I look left and notice an Escalade parked on a section of lawn shaped like a parking spot. Behind me, there's another section that looks similar but wide enough for two cars. No way: they park on their lawn! Where I come from that's considered, well, trashy. Here, it's a show of wealth: "we'll lawn coat all our parking spots and let the hired greenskeeper deal with the maintenance." I love that the wealthy do nonsensical things just because they can, like the rap star's refrigerator full of $1,000 bottles of Cristal champagne. I back my car right up onto that lawn and hesitate for a second, thinking it might be fun to peel out, the greenskeeper be damned. But this isn't my lawn, after all, so I'm afforded no such privilege. 

A little while later, I deliver to a mansion in the Del Mar Country Club, speed limit 20 mph, and an athletic high school, or post-high school, kid answers the door. His total is $17.03, and he hands me a $20 bill, saying, "Sorry, this is kinda a crummy tip; it's all I got." I tell him not to worry about it, since it's 17%, but I'm impressed by his grasp of basic economic principles––namely, that a few dollars means more to me than him and that "trickle down economics" really depend on the altruism of the wealthy.

On my last run of the night, I'm driving the dark loop of The Farms golf club when I see something that gives me chills. I understand the power of human imagination, so I don't believe ghosts and spirits roam the earth, though I've been in my fair share of places that felt haunted (the entire town of Plymouth, MA, comes to mind). But as I pass a set of trash cans in a darkened driveway, I see a woman dressed in a Del Mar Racetrack-type outfit: wide brimmed black hat with a red and black checkered scarf, complimented by a matching dress. I only get a glimpse, but her smooth face and stiff, bent arm posture look like a mannequin's. Her gaze and body turn to follow my passing car, but her mannequin pose doesn't change. And when I look in my rearview mirror, she's gone. It could be the end of the night fatigue playing tricks, but as I stare out into the darkness of the golf course, my skin bubbles into goosebumps. I want to turn the car around and clear up the whole thing, but I drive on, trying not to break the 25 m.p.h. speed limit but hoping she doesn't catch up. After I finish my delivery, I follow the loop all the way around to the entrance rather than pass by my apparition. I'd hate to change my belief about ghosts.

Day 74: August 13, 2009 (my Maserati does nothing, diamonds do everything, and I get critical and hypocritical at the same time)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 9

Sales: $269.57

Tips: $39.50

Hours: 3.67

Total Wage: $18.76 per hour

While on day 61 I wrote that I'm becoming more accustomed to the luxurious houses and landscapes of Rancho Santa Fe and, therefore, numb, I'm still amazed by some residents' extra luxuriousness. Tonight, I pull into a driveway in the Crosby, and when I cruise up to their round-about with the ornate fountain in the middle, I notice they have two garages facing each other. One contains a brand new, white Maserati (triggering the Eagles lyric: "My Maserati does one-eighty-five" in my head), and the other garage houses a black Bentley. Neither have license plates yet, and both cars cost well over $100,000 each. Tall, black, horse-riding boots stand idle behind the Bentley. As I approach the front door, I gawk at the all-marble portico with somewhat Moorish tile designs in the pillars. A pleasant, bleach-blonde woman over six feet tall answers the door. Her lips look cosmetically altered, and I think it's safe to assume the two bulges pushing out her tight white T-shirt with the horse and rider design in diamond-looking sequins are artificially "enhanced." She gives me a decent tip, and I can't help fantasize about the ease of her life––the expensive cars, the horse riding, the marble portico, meals delivered nightly. But it's not my fantasy. I would prefer a modest house, a car-less existence, a nice vegetable garden with fruit trees, dirty boots by the back door, and a cosmetically unaltered woman to share it all with. I would even prefer my current life as, what my maternal grandma would call, a "beach bum."

Later in the night I deliver to a home on Poco Lago which looks like something that belongs on the cover of an architecture magazine. A minimally-slanted wall facade made of semi-polished limestone (?) slabs obscures perpendicularly slanted metal roofs shooting out into the sky, giving the appearance of five separate structures beyond the wall. The impossibly wide front door looks to be copper or brass, and I can hear a dog with a deep bark on the other side. Even with all my experience, I can only distinguish large dog barks from small but not attack dogs from Frisbee-fetching dogs. I hear a woman approach from the other side, saying, "No. No. Stay. Go to your bed," but the mean bark continues. The weight of the door makes it open slowly, and I hear a "no," before seeing a white blur of a dog come running out. I stiffen, and hold the pizza bag ready to shove in its jaws. But, luckily, it's a large, furry terrier who just sniffs around me. "We're trying to get him to not do that," the woman says. 

Her motherly, Mexican servant helps get the dog inside before the woman closes the door and asks me how much she owes. While she digs through her purse for cash, the largest diamond I've ever seen shines from her ring finger. Her dual-faced watch also blings with a diamond-encrusted outside ring. And this is when I can feel true compassion for the wealthy and the poor at the same time: she's the victim of the most successful wool-over-the-eyes ad campaign in the world, De Beers's "A Diamond is Forever" ads (you can read the history in this article from The Atlantic), and she remains entirely ignorant and indifferent to the reality her purchase may have caused (which you can read about in National Geographic's article, "Diamonds: the Real Story," or this shorter article about conflict diamonds on Amnesty International's website). When I see diamonds, I see suffering children in Africa, think of exploited, HIV infected workers in African mines, and I hear family arguments about where my deceased grandma's diamonds ended up. Diamonds are not a girl's best friend, nor are they forever, but the worldwide and familial conflicts they cause, as well as the environmental degradation, can last generations. This isn't to say I'm not a consumer hypocrite, because, like everyone else, I am, but diamonds strike a special nerve in me

As the woman hands me the money for her pizza, I can't help but feel that instinctual, human longing for shiny things, something like a pack rat's (Neotoma cinerea) inexplicable need to gather shiny objects in its nest, as her hand and wrist sparkle in the fluorescent light of her entryway.  

Day 70:August 9, 2009 (when the rich give up)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 10

Sales: $367.47

Tips: $55

Hours: 4.42

Total Wage: $20.44 per hour

My first delivery of the night is in the Airoso condos, which sell from $546,000 to $583,900, depending on the floor plan. The doorway I arrive at has at least four Hawaiian signs asking you to remove your shoes, "Mahalo." A spunky, short woman with naturally curly, dark hair answers the door and ask me to wait a minute. When she disappears, I watch her nine-year-old daughter, who looks like a miniature version of the mom, dance and sing in front of their large TV. The daughter stops when she realizes she has an audience, but then begins performing again. The mom returns with a big smile and money hidden in the coupon that gave her a $5.19 discount. She thanks me profusely, then closes the door. On my way to the car, I unravel the money in the coupon and count out $25 for the $24.61 order, giving me a thirty-nine cent tip. I have two options at this point, both of which I've done in the past. If I had some change in my pocket, I would return to the door, say "Mahalo, but I forgot to give you your change," and drop the coins in her hand. Or I can accept that the delivery gods are still upset with me, and hope other customers make up for this woman's cheapness. I decide to let it go.

On my third run of the night, I deliver to a mansion in the Bridges. A large man, who looks like a cross between George Lucas (especially his beard) and Harvey Fierstein, answers the door wearing a loosely tied, white robe, exposing his gray chest hair, and plaid pajama bottoms. The thick, gold chain around his neck glistens while he reaches into his pocket to produce a $100 bill. He asks if I have change, but only wants $25 back, leaving me a nice $8.02 tip on $66.98. As I walk away, I can't help but think it's a little strange a rich man would answer his door in pajamas, especially since it's only 7:00 p.m. I thought the rich were supposed to set and uphold standards of decency for the lower classes; that's their assigned job.

On my very next delivery run, a man in his late thirties answers his door wearing . . . his boxers and a T-shirt and something that makes even less sense: a Philadelphia hat (to shade him from the sun?). What the hell is going on around here? He pays me without acknowledging he's in his underwear, and I hesitate before taking the cash. The whole transaction feels a little dirty, like shaking a man's hand at a public urinal. I'm all for being comfortable in your own home, but you can show a little self-respect by putting pants on before you come to your door; it's not like you weren't expecting me.

And I know we've become a more and more casual culture in America––it's almost a sign of success to not have to wear a suit, ever––but these exchanges make me pine for the days of my grandparents, when people didn't leave the house without dressing up. It's like everyone's thrown in the towel, and this reminds me of David Sedaris's observation of an American couple on a Paris subway in Me Talk Pretty One Day, where he says, "Comfort has its place, but it seems rude to visit another country dressed as if you've come to mow its lawns" (222). It also reminds me of this dialogue between Jerry and George on a Seinfeld episode:

Jerry: "Again with the sweatpants?"

George: "What? I'm comfortable."

Jerry: "You know the message you're sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You're telling the world, 'I give up. I can't compete in normal society. I'm miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.'"

God, I need to buy a suit and start wearing it all the time.

I'm allowed to take my last delivery of the night on my way home, since it's near my house. I approach the darkened doors of a duplex, trying to figure out which one is 308 and which is 310. I hear some shuffling around the corner, so I walk over there to discover a young guy in his twenties coming through a wooden gate. "Hey, man," he says, "she's right here," but he turns to see no one's behind him. He fetches his girlfriend, who comes out wearing a longish, red T-shirt that has a V-neck exposing her plentiful breasts. She wears glasses, and her teeth are a little large for her mouth, but that doesn't diminish her cuteness. We stand in the beams of my headlights, and she can't make out the numbers on the credit card slip, so she turns to use the wall of the house, saying, "Oh, there I go." She stands on her tip-toes to reach the wall over the empty flower bed, and her boyfriend sees the same thing I do at the same time I do: her red shirt rises, exposing the roundness of butt cheeks jutting from her scanty underwear. A moment of awkwardness passes between he and I, and he knows he must act. He reaches out and pulls her shirt down hard, covering her near nakedness. She laughs with a slight "whoops," unashamed, and finishes filling out the slip. She hands it to me, and we all express our profound thanks to one another.

I drive home thinking this will always be known as the night of the underwear, the night the rich gave up.

Day 68: August 7, 2009 (an old man teaches a lesson in social acceptance)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 13

Sales: $597.64

Tips: $75

Hours: 4.58

Total Wage: $24.38 per hour

On my first run of the night, I'm surprised to find an elderly gentleman guard at the gate to Rancho Del Lago. Judging by his bright white, thin hair, hearing aids, and the condition of his aged skin, I would say he's in his 80s. He reminds me of my maternal grandfather, who died two years ago. I read him the address, and before he opens the gate, he says he'd better call first. "Last time I didn't call her, she chewed my ass out." Confiding this in me puts us on the same team, socially speaking: the servants. He then asks, "You got anything in there for me?" I look around the car and tell him I'm sorry, but I don't. Even though he just pressed my pet peeve"don't ask the pizza guy if he has extra food" button, I don't mind as much.

The whole incident calls to mind this paragraph from "The Symbolic Power of Money" report, which I can't stop thinking about: 

As social and cultural animals, humans rely on each other (i.e., on their social group and its organizing systems) to get what they want and need. This social interdependency sustains a strong need to belong, because, gaining acceptance by the group is important for obtaining the means of survival. However, in all but the most primitive cultures, money can substitute for social popularity: Money enables people to manipulate the social system to give them what they want, regardless of whether they are liked. In other words, either money or interpersonal inclusion enables people to obtain what they want from the social system. 

The old man and I have socially accepted each other, confirmed we belong to the same social group of servants, and rejected the rich woman with her condescending ways. She can counter our social rejection with money and her own social group: she couldn't care less what we think about her (if she could hear us). 

Many doors in these wealthy communities are answered by the tall and beautiful, people who have always been socially accepted, but from time to time you see the socially awkward Bill Gates type––he might even have a mail-order-looking bride––and somehow his money makes up for what he lacks. I imagine being able to buy your way into a country club serves the same function of social acceptance, even if you're not well liked there. 

The report goes on to say:

Even just the idea or feeling of having money should generate a broad sense of strength or efficacy. Hence, feeling rejected (i.e., low in social approval) should increase the desire for money. Thoughts of having money should blunt the pain of being rejected . . . we found that counting money, which presumably evoked the idea of getting and having money, reduced the suffering induced by . . . ostracism and real physical pain.

While I don't think I was ever socially rejected as a child, I had a mental glitch that made me occasionally ask my mom if I could stay home from elementary school because "nobody there likes me" (a glitch that has shown up in one of my nephews). This study may explain why I often sat alone in my room counting the change and bills, saved from not eating lunch, stuffed in my metal coffee can. 

Without money, the guard and I only have our similar social position as servants, so we create social bonds by goofing on the rich: we're not assholes, like them. As a matter of fact, this whole exercise in writing about feeding the rich can be seen as my attempt to be socially accepted by you, the reader, as we sit back and criticize and laugh at the rich. They are the Other. While we pretend there's something wrong with them––greedy; uncaring; socially unconscious; conspicuous consumers––maybe our criticism is just a way for us to feel more bound together in our middle-classness or poverty. After all, our goal isn't to be poor. (I love this Seneca quote from Alain de Botton's Consolations of Philosophy: "Stop preventing philosophers from possessing money; no one has condemned wisdom to poverty.") We don't envy the poor, and their condition only makes us feel the same compassion we should possibly be feeling for the rich, though in an altered form ("It's sad that he needs a Hummer to feel socially accepted"). Even though I don't consider myself poor by anyone's definition, I realize I want to be perceived on the side of the poor, to be on the same team.   

On tonight's episode of NPR's Marketplace, there is an interesting story on the shifting focus of famous homes in America. At "The Breakers," the Vanderbilt's summer mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, the narratives now being told center on the role of the servants rather than the fancy furniture. Visitors are now told about the extravagances of the Vanderbilts and the unending labor of the maids: "each bath was made of marble so thick and cold, a maid had to fill and empty it twice before the bath was warm enough for a Vanderbilt." A woman who works at the home says the tours are geared to a more "socially conscious" public, and as one visitor observes, "There's certainly no way I would have ever walked the halls with the Vandebilts, so to hear the other side is very interesting." 

While us commoners will never tire of stories about wealthy people's material extravagances and poor behavior, maybe we're shifting back toward the original, more democratic and egalitarian vision of our founding father's words (not their actions), and if we should ever have the good fortune of becoming wealthy, we will learn from these narratives and prove we actually are a more socially conscious public. I know the next time I come by Rancho del Lago, I'm bringing my elderly friend in the guard shack some cookies.  

Day 67: August 6, 2009 (pissing off the delivery gods, "well, I'm good," and I figure out why the wealthy prefer money rolls)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 7

Sales: $195.76

Tips: $27.50

Hours: 3.30

Total Wage: $16.33

I'm not sure what I've done to piss off the delivery gods––maybe it was writing about how much they've been hooking me up all week––but they decided to balance things out tonight. 

I begin the night with a single-bagger to El Brazo, one of the farthest streets (8.4 miles, one way) we deliver to in Cielo. Since, according to this government site, my car gets a combined 19 miles per gallon, and we only receive $1.45 per delivery for gas, this run is actually costing me gas money. When I'm getting the delivery ready, I notice in the direction section of the delivery ticket that one of my fellow drivers noted in the past, "GREAT VIEW!" And when I finally turn the corner onto El Brazo, elevation over 1,000 feet, I get a beautiful view of the green valley and hills to the south. While the home I deliver to has 4,193 square feet and an unusual ratio of 3 bedrooms to 5 bathrooms, the coolest feature is by far the real church bell over the door at the house gate leading into the courtyard. The black, cast iron bell has a chain that cuts through a hoop, and hangs down to a handle. I pull that sucker hard, and the solid gong reverberates throughout the hills. I would ring it every day if I lived here, coming and going. A nice woman and her daughter arrive at the gate and give me a $3.56 tip, which makes my net tip $2.01 after accounting for gas losses (not calculated into the above totals). 

My next two deliveries give me decent tips ($4.50 on $31.11 & $4.00 on 31.09), but the run after that kills me. When I arrive at the house in Santa Luz, it's one that has a driveway with no access to the front door. The open garage reveals a life of chaos: bikes cast about; sets of golf clubs piled on; skateboards here and there; a spilt jar of change, among other crap. I try calling the house, but no one answers. I cut through the garage, kicking things out of the way to make a safe path to the door, and knock. A frazzled mom comes to the door, and I apologize for being in her garage, and she apologizes for the stupid layout of the houses. She hands me some cash, and it's not until the door shuts and I'm walking through the garage debris, that I discover she only tipped me $1.30. I think about scooping some change off the garage floor, but I assume her chaotic life is enough penance. 

The next house on this same run should be cut out of our delivery zone, since it's 8.9 miles (another gallon of gas) away and technically in Rancho Penasquitos. It's an average San Diego neighborhood, and the woman who answers the door gives me an average two dollar tip, so that by 8:00 p.m., I have only $15.36 in tips. 

The next two deliveries save my night from a total disaster (which would be under $20 in tips). I arrive at a condo, and a girl answers the door, then calls to her boyfriend. The tall boyfriend in his 20s burps at the door, grabs the credit card receipt out of my hand, and while signing against the door, asks if I have any ranch dressing, like I would be driving around warming ranch dressing in my car all night and cultivating bacteria. "No, you have to ask for that when you order," I say. 

After tipping me $6, he says, "Dustin was out on another delivery, or something?" referring to one of my fellow drivers.  I guess so. He says to tell Dustin "what up?" from Greer, so I agree and head off to my next delivery, where, after the guy tips me $5, some woman walking by asks if I have any extra pizza. This is probably the dumbest and most annoying thing you can ask a pizza delivery guy (gate guards are the most frequent violators of this rule). We don't carry around extra pizza, and if there's a mess-up in the store, a pack of wild delivery drivers salivate at the chance to devour free food.

Speaking of pet peeves, earlier in the night, a well built, blonde man in surfer/casual clothes answered a door and asked me how I was. I said "good," then asked him how he was, and he replied with the pretentious-correcting-your-grammar-sounding "well." When someone does this, it makes me feel uneducated, yet I'd feel pretentious and like a pedant if I said "well" and made someone else feel this same awkwardness. A friend recently tried to explain the difference, "well" being an adverb describing the verb "am," and "good" being an adjective that should describe a noun, and, therefore, unfit to describe the verb "am." But according to Grammar Girl, this isn't correct, and you can say either "well" or "good," because "am" is a linking verb (like "is": He is tall) and plays by different rules. I notice the wealthy tend toward the whole "well" response to seem educated and, well, refined.

This man also fumbled around with a cash roll (discussed in post on Days 46 & 47), dropping bills as he went to pay. He even said, "I have too many freakin' bills here." I've said I can't figure out the whole flashing money roll phenomenon, but then I found this online NPR story that explained it all: "Study: Your Brain Thinks Money Is a Drug." It turns out that handling cash during an experiment in China helped the cash handlers feel less pain than their counterparts handling blank pieces of paper (they were all told they'd be performing hand dexterity tests and later had their hands put in hot water and asked about their discomfort level). 

The conclusion is that "money can act as a substitute for social acceptance, reducing social discomfort, and, by extension, physical discomfort . . . even pain . . . [and] works as a substitute for another pain buffer––love." But then the researcher, Xinyue Zhou, adds, "All substitutes are sad." The researcher said what also stood out was a feeling of strength the cash handlers felt. And I think this is what the cash rolls of the wealthy (and gamblers, and drug dealers, and rappers in videos, and my friend Todd Noe) are all about: a show of strength. I mean, I feel better (stronger?) when I keep my cash tips rolled up in an undisclosed location in my room and take them out every now and then to count (flexing my strength), rather than immediately putting them in the bank or receiving a paper paycheck. At the same time, I feel pretty good (and sometimes sad, due to the small amounts) getting a printed paycheck, and is why I refuse to sign up for direct deposit; I, too, want to feel the pain-easing, tactile power of cash. (I can hear John Lee Hooker singing in the background: "The best thing in life is free, but you can give it to the birds and bees; I need some money. Need some money, oh yeah, what I want.")

But then I just read in the actual study, entitled "The Symbolic Power of Money," that "interpersonal rejection and pain caused desire for money to increase," which makes my cash handling fetish, as well as that of my wealthy patrons, seem a little less exciting and more psychologically telling. The article also explains why having less tip money in my hands tonight has put me in such a foul mood.   

Days 64-66: August 3-5, 2009 (propitiated gods, protecting happiness, and bluffing the wealthy)

Monday-Wednesday (combined totals)

Position: Driver 

Number of Deliveries: 30

Sales: $1397.54

Tips: $227

Hours: 11.93

Total Wage: $27.03 per hour

Over the past three days, the delivery gods have continued to look upon me favorably, giving me two more of my most profitable shifts ($103 in tips on Monday & $91.50 on Wednesday––on top of my record-setting $109.50 on Sunday) but not much else happened, except on Wednesday night.

Wednesday: when I arrive at the south Fairbanks Ranch guard gate, the big African-American guard asks where I'm going, because one of the customers (we deliver in here several times a night) asked him to call ahead. I tell him the address, and he says that's the one. The guards normally let us right through without questions, but this time he leaves the gate closed while calling the woman. He gets off the phone with her, and lets me in. 

When I arrive at the address, the driveway gate is already wide open and a blonde woman in her fifties, wearing some kind of beachwear, stands on the walkway leading to the front door. Her yard is populated by super happy J. Seward Johnson-esque children sculptures (see Day 56 entry for full discussion of these types of sculptures––I need to make an effort to find out the real artist responsible for these Rancho sculptures): happy kids playing leap frog; happy children on horseback; and happy children out enjoying a walk in the sunshine. It's like her own Neverland Ranch, where everyone is living in "happy time" and sadness isn't allowed in. Maybe she had the guard screen me to make sure I wasn't sneaking any sadness in with the pastas she ordered. She pays me in cash, and has that distant look reserved for crazy people and combat veterans. I thank her for the tip, and drive back out into the world where sadness reigns supreme.

Later in the night, I get a delivery to the Del Mar Country Club (their webpage intro video is unbelievably hilarious), with special instructions to call when I arrive. After calling, I'm met by a country club staff member outside, and he walks me into the bowels of the club, explaining that I'll get a better tip if I take it in myself. We go down stairs, past a surprisingly edgy, green Statue of Liberty painting, across ornate carpets and down hardwood hallways until we arrive in a back room equipped with a Vegas-style poker table where six men sit playing Texas Hold-em. I feel like I'm being admitted to a secret meeting or the presidential bunker beneath the White House. I worked at a country club in Fresno, so I'm used to these sorts of scenes (and illegal gambling), but I can't help thinking how much wealthier these men must be than their poor counterparts in Fresno. To me, Fresno wealth has always seemed like pretend wealth, and these guys are the real thing: San Diego wealthy. 

A man asks me how much they owe me, then continues to play his hand without looking up. As I begin to tell him, he says, "One hundred and fifty," as he throws several chips into the pot. I assume those might be real dollars they're playing with, because his bet pushes two men out. Since I'm standing behind him, I can see he doesn't have a hand. The dealer puts down a ten of clubs, and the man says, "Oooo, a club," bluffing a flush, before he digs into his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash to pay me. "How much did you say it was?" 

"Twenty-two-o-nine," I say. 

He hands me $25, says, "Is that good?" and returns to the hand without waiting for my reply. Since I had to deal with a gate guard, a phone call, a guided tour, and sit through a hand of poker, I kind of expected more from the cream-of-the-wealthy-crop. I thank him, and don't stick around to see how the hand finishes. 

On my way out, the country club worker asks if the man took care of me, and I say yes, before getting lost in the wooden hallways trying to find my way back out of their world.

Day 63: August 2, 2009 (big tippers, transexual gate guards, and hot air balloons)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 16

Sales: $983.78

Tips: $109.50

Hours: 4.47

Total Wage: $32.50 per hour

I arrive at work a little early tonight, and it's already busy. We're short a couple of drivers––two guys didn't get their shifts covered and another driver has a family emergency (his brother disappeared in the Columbia River after falling off a boat, and is presumed drowned). Even the night manager is out on delivery while the day manager holds down the fort. I luck out on  my first two deliveries, getting a $124. 34 order that tips me $15.66 and one for $59.23 that tips me $10. 

I'm back within a half hour and off on three more deliveries. The night's rolling along, and at about 7:00 p.m. I get an order for $355.00. I can't believe my luck. It takes me awhile to load up the pizzas, trays of pasta, and large bowls of salad, but I do so with giddy anticipation. When I get to the house, an elderly man is wandering around outside in shorts, a worn out T-shirt, and sandals checking on his sprinklers. He mumbles something about his wife, then walks inside. She has me unload everything and bring it into their kitchen, then I walk back outside and wait for her to bring out the credit card slip. The old man stands close to me and asks how I'm doing. He says something else about not being in charge, then mumbles something about the yard. He reminds me of my step-father, who has Alzheimer's, and his never-ending daily battle to keep his yard leaf-and-dog-poop free. The woman returns and hands me the slip with a $10 tip written in. I'm disappointed but not too upset, since their house isn't that far from the Pizzeria and I've already made good money.

Midway through the night I get an order to Fairbanks Ranch, and when I arrive at the guard house, I encounter the androgynous guard I've only seen once before. Since I've never had any direct interaction, I'm not sure if the guard is a male with a ponytail who likes to wear lipstick or a manly woman, or something in between. I figure hearing his/her voice and reading the name tag will clarify my curiosity, but the name tag says "Bobbie C___," and when the guard speaks it's with a semi-high voice that could easily be male or female. When the guard lets me in, I say, "Thanks, ma . . ." and I trail off before I can add on an "'am" or an "n," for fear of offending him/her. It's interesting, because just the other night my girlfriend and I were talking to some of her friends, while in a gay bar, about the whole phenomenon of transexuals, while a couple transvestites sat at a nearby table. It is America, and people have the right to the pursuit of happiness, so I don't care what expensive surgeries you undergo to correct nature's chromosomal mistakes, but I would like to know whether or not to call Bobbie "ma'am" or "man" or a suitable, gender neutral alternative, so we can both feel comfortable and courteous. Maybe I'll just stick to "thanks, Bobbie."  

Later in the night, as I approach the corner of Via Santa Fe and Apajo, two men with flashlights signal for me and the car in front of me to slow down. When I turn the corner, I see flashing red and blue lights and some silhouettes of cars in the dark. I assume there's been a nasty accident, and when I pass the scene and peer between the cop cars, I see some people seated on the lawn who look like they've been evacuated from the cars. But then I see three guys hustling around a large basket, trying to roll up a flattened hot air balloon. All summer long, people have been taking hot air balloon rides that usually begin in Encinitas and end somewhere around here. The balloons are a sign of summer, and you can see vans with empty trailers waiting in our parking lot or chasing balloons through open fields, trying to predict their landing spots. These guys on Apajo happen to have put one down in the middle of the road at night, which could have turned into a bloody disaster, and now they were being lectured by the cops while their crew hustled to pack everything up. It's a funny scene, something that seems like it could only happen in Rancho, and probably the most excitement the cops will see around here all night.

What I think is my last delivery of the night is a single-bagger up the hill behind us. But I hustle and make it back before the other driver arrives, so I get the final order of $73.93. The delivery gods are with me tonight, and this final order gives me a $12 tip, which brings my total tips to my highest to date: $109.50, and that's including the small $10 tip on the $355.00 order. Though I hate that money can influence my mood, I leave a happy pizza man. 

Day 61: July 31, 2009 (turning points and golden handcuffs)

A.M.

Position: Manager 

Tips: $5 (from pick-up orders)

Hours: 6.90

Total Wage: $14.72

I agree to cover a managing shift this morning for the General Manager, because I could use the money for an upcoming skateboarding trip to the Orcas Island skatepark in Washington. Yeah, I know, I just got back from vacation and now I'm about to take another week off to skateboard, swim in lakes, camp and drink cheap beer with one of my closest friends and thirty of his friends. That's one of the great things about this job, the flexibility and ease of getting time off. And while you can see by the numbers up above that managing pays about $10 an hour less than driving or serving, I'm still able to save money fast enough to take monthly trips. Today is ridiculously slow, so the $102 I make feels like free money.

P.M.

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 5

Sales: $152.78

Tips: $24

Hours: 1.57

Total Wage: $23.29 per hour

Even though I managed all day, I'm able to work some of my driving shift. As I cruise around tonight, I observe that the luxurious houses and landscapes, the gate guards and gates inside gates are becoming more and more commonplace to me; I notice that I'm noticing them less. It reminds me of an installation art project a woman (I can't remember her name nor find her right this minute through Google) did years ago where she filled an entire museum room with chocolate and had a gangplank that reached out into the center. The museum visitor would be overwhelmed by the smell of chocolate upon entering the room, but if she stayed long enough on the gangplank, her nose would acclimate to the smell, and it would disappear. The point for me being that anything can become commonplace and lose its appeal/shock when experienced for an extended amount of time or repetitiously. The smell of Rancho Santa Fe is vanishing from my nose, though occasionally I'll still notice gradations of wealth.

Along these lines, in his book Poor People, William Vollmann defines poverty not based on the World Bank's definition of living on under $4 per day but based on people's relation to normalcy, which varies from country to country and community to community. Under that definition, there are even poor people among the wealthy in Rancho. Sometimes I'll enter a house with a nice exterior and large yard only to discover aging curio cabinets and other old people furniture, accompanied by old people smell (Has anyone figured out what that smell is? Decomposing flesh on the living?), which I don't think my nose will ever acclimate to, until I become an old man with old furniture. Or maybe someone can just barely afford the mansion mortgage and is unable to park a Bently in the garage nor fill the cavernous space with original abstract paintings or designer furniture. Poor people.

While I deliver in the Morgan Run development where the skate session went down yesterday, I hear a California Report special called "Turning Points" on NPR. Today's story, which you can listen to here, is about a man who left a six-figure income on Wall Street trading in securities and derivatives and returned to school to become a pediatrician in Berkeley. During the story, he uses the term "golden handcuffs" to describe the phenomenon of keeping a job because you can't make as much money elsewhere. This is going to sound silly, but even though my job allows me time to write, exercise, read at the beach, and enough money to pay rent and travel, I feel a need to find work that gives me a sense of accomplishment and intellectual and emotional fulfillment. But I'm wearing golden handcuffs. I was only making $857 a month teaching, and it was difficult at times, but there was so much more satisfaction in someone thanking you at the end of the semester and telling you how much you influenced their thinking and writing. In comparison, what I'm doing now feels somewhat selfish and emotionally bankrupt but easy.   

The pediatrician says the golden handcuffs "had less and less of a hold on me. It didn't become as important a measure of my own fulfillment and success." 

(It has always been a dream of mine to become a doctor, but then I'll realize I'd have to start my education over since it's so science deficient, and I start thinking about law school or a PhD, but those options seem equally unfulfilling for me.) 

The pediatrician goes on to say, "Every single day, with no exceptions, I can't wait to get to work. I get hugs at work . . . I make people feel better. I improve children's lives, and I just can't imagine something more fulfilling than that." I can't say while teaching there weren't days I didn't want to get to work, but the part about the hugs reminds me of a day teaching when a young Hmong girl came in after missing class and explained she'd been in a car accident, and when she was telling me, she began to shake and sob, and in that moment I wanted to hug her, to do the thing that seemed most human and humane, but I knew I couldn't because we were alone in that cold, sterile room with the fluorescent lights, and physical contact with students isn't allowed. Maybe this guy's onto something; maybe I should become a pediatrician, where acts of humanity aren't only accepted but encouraged.

Day 60: July 30, 2009 (skateboarding on the job)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 11

Sales: $439.38

Tips: $68

Hours: 3.88

Total Wage: $26.06 per hour

Tonight is the first night of ESPN's X-Games, which doesn't really affect my life other than I like to watch the skateboarding, since I grew up skating. But before I leave for work, I catch a pre-X-Games show called Homecoming with Rick Reily, and this particular episode has Tony Hawk returning to his junior high school for a town hall-style interview. All the old Powell-Peralta Bones Brigade members are there, and they relive Hawk's career and the history of skateboarding. As with most television, it's programmed for maximum emotional response from the audience––with several mentions of Hawk's father dying of lung cancer in 1995––and by the time I leave for work, whether out of my own nostalgia for my skateboarding past or my sense of personal failure compared to Hawk's success, my eyes water when he gives the school kids the hackneyed advice that no matter what they're into, no matter how strange it seems to people, to stay with it, and they will have success in life.

Tonight and tomorrow night, I will try to watch the X-Games skateboarding in the store before and between my deliveries. Tomorrow night, Danny Way, who is my age, will injure his knee and will barely be able to walk, but he'll continue trying tricks on the Big Rail Jam. He will fall every run, then finally pull off an impossible trick––a switch 50-50 on the rail––and win the gold medal. He'll be interviewed after he wins, and they'll ask him why he kept riding even when he's severely injured, and he'll say, "It's not for the money, that's for sure. I love skateboarding. I've been doing it my whole life . . . I just have a passion for skateboarding; it's like a fire that keeps burning and it doesn't ever go out." That's how I feel, even though I sprain my ankle almost every time I skate now.

While out on one of my first deliveries of the night, I see four kids skateboarding in the Morgan Run complex. Well, two kids are trying to ollie from the curb out into the street over their friend's skateboard, while one kid films and another sits around. Neither kid is even close to landing the gap as I pass by and slow down to watch. They film me passing, and laugh. I think back to a couple months ago when one of my fellow delivery drivers poached a backyard pool while on delivery. He set up his camera on self-timer and managed to capture himself turning in the deep end. I thought it was one of the coolest delivery stories I've ever heard, and I was stoked to see the photo.

After my delivery, as I'm passing back by and the kids are still not making the gap, I hear them say, "Film the pizza guy, again." I lean out my window and say, "You want me to bust it?" They yell out, "Yeah," and ask if I can skateboard. One of them loans me his deck, which feels loose and funky, and I push down the sidewalk feeling contest-like jitters. I don't normally skateboard in the low-top, Converse Chuck Taylors I'm wearing, so I don't feel confident at all.

My first attempt to ollie the gap is way off, and the board flies out in front of me, though we both clear the gap. On the second attempt, I feel almost less confident and more shaky than the first, and when I go to ollie, the board turns sideways, and even though I clear the gap, I have to run out of the landing. The kids let out a collective, "Ah." I know if I had my own board and regular skate shoes, I could probably backside or frontside 180 (turn 180 degrees in the air) over the small gap. 

With a little more confidence now, I say, "One more time," and the kids encourage me. At this point, I'm worried about spraining my ankle, because I have a half-marathon coming up in a couple of weeks, and I don't want to be injured for that. I roll back to my starting point on the sidewalk and begin pushing, cutting through the dirt overlapping the cement, and on toward the edge of the curb. Everything feels right. When I approach the curb's drop off, I stay right, where the gap distance is shorter, and clear the board with ease. The kids cheer, I hand back the board, and as I drive off, one of the kids says, "I'm always going to get THE Pizzeria." And I'm always going to skateboard, I think.   

The next day, out of pure boredom and curiosity, I checked Youtube to see if the kids posted the footage, and I found it (it's my first Youtube video):

Day 59: July 29, 2009 (Kara Walker paintings, young, successful black men, and my own sense of failure)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 9 

Sales: $263.91

Tips: $33

Hours: 2.73

Total Wage: $20.09 per hour

One of my early deliveries tonight is in the Rancho Santa Fe Farms development, which is where Janet Jackson used to own a house. It's right up the hill behind the Pizzeria, so it's always nice to get a delivery in here. When I arrive at the door of the large, white mansion, a giant bare-footed black man, who must be close to 300 lbs., answers the door wearing athletic sweatpants (San Diego Chargers colors––blue with a yellow and white stripe) and a tight T-shirt. I assume he's a pro football player, which makes me feel both perceptive and a little racist.

His cute little girl comes to the door with dried snot below her nose and her hair in small, tight braids that look like furry mealworms against her exposed scalp. She begins to mumble words, but stalls, and I think she's going to utter an unintelligible toddler talk sentence, but she says, "Is your mother here?" I laugh and tell her that no, my mother isn't here. The man hands me a crisp, one-hundred dollar bill, and I see an original (I'm blanking on her first name) Walker painting––the woman who does the amazing slave silhouette paintings and cutouts––behind him. 

"I don't have change for a hundred," I say, and hand it back to him. He looks perturbed, then asks if he can use a credit card. "Yeah, but we have to call it in," I say. He walks away with that slow glide I notice is reserved for athletes (I've seen the college athletes of all shapes and sizes at my old university use this same slow-motion walk to cruise across campus, as if they're permanently exhausted or conserving their energy for an explosive athletic maneuver later in the day.) The man returns with a phone in one hand and an empty 32 oz. Gatorade bottle in the other into which, my God, he's spitting chew spit.

"What's the number?" he asks, as spittle of brown goo makes its way onto his chin. I tell him the number, and halfway through dialing it, he asks me to repeat it. As he waits for someone to answer, he bellows at his daughter, "Sophia, what are you doing?" She has her face close to the cement walkway, but looks up and feigns innocence. The man asks for my manager on the phone, spits into his Gatorade bottle, then slowly reads off his credit card number. I stare at his large, dry, bare feet, and for some reason the bare feet make me think he must be from the South. There's this feeling––which I'm completely making up but which is partially inspired by the Walker slave painting behind him––that he's thinking, The roles are reversed; who's serving whom now? How ya like me now? It's a real Ma Rainey moment.

God bless America, I think.

When he gets off the phone, I hand him the receipt, which I've converted into a credit card slip by drawing a tip line, a total line, and a signature line, and I say, "You can just sign this." He takes the receipt from me, and as he's about to fill in the tip line, I try one last time to make a connection by saying, "What's the name of the woman who paints those silhouettes?" I know her last name is Walker, but I don't want to get it wrong. He turns around to look at the painting, then says, with little enthusiasm, "Kara Walker." And like a fumbling idiot, I say, "Oh, right, I've seen her work in San Francisco," to which he seems unimpressed. He hands me the receipt, closes the door, and I fret at the $2 tip on the $29.58 order (6.76 %).

The receipt has his last name, so I Google him at home: La'Roi Glover. Turns out this 290 lb., 6-time Pro-bowl defensive tackle played 13 seasons with 4 different teams in the NFL, and just retired two months ago from the St. Louis Rams. He's not from the South; he's a San Diego native. And, get this, he's a year younger than I am; he just turned thirty-five on the second of last month. Wikipedia  informs me he's married with three children and he even has his own La'Roi Glover Foundation, helping out local high school and college students. I can't help feeling jealous, followed by depressed about my own life. La'Roi has accomplished everything he needs to accomplish in life––no one expects anything more from him––and he's only thirty-five. He gets to play dad and humanitarian and golf and live in his mansion (and spit in Gatorade bottles!), all thanks to professional football. It somehow doesn't seem fair.(Yeah, right.) But I think, He'll never feel what it's like to be a disappointment to his family, unless, of course, at this point he gets caught in a hotel room with hookers and cocaine. He can even afford to buy art from his favorite famous painters. Imagine. My great life living at the beach and delivering pizza suddenly seems a little less great.

I climb back into my old car with the slowness reserved for top athletes, turn the starter over, and hear the now familiar sound of the motor boat muffler installed by the previous owner play its silly tune: bumph, bumph, bumph, bumph. I think of the consoling lyrics of another young, successful black man––Timbaland (b. 1971)––as I drive off: "Listen baby girl, I ain't got a motorboat but I can float your boat . . .  ." And I hope my girlfriend understands. 

Day 58: July 28, 2009 (house bongs and asshole fathers)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 13

Sales: $391.34

Tips: $73

Hours: 4.70

Total Wage: $23.53 per hour

On one of my first deliveries of the night, I deliver to brand new row housing on Bristol Ridge Terrace. Next to the front door lies an overfilled bowl of crushed out cigarettes, surrounded by ashes and burn marks on the cement. It smells like an un-emptied ashtray in the confines of a car. A cute, over-tanned girl about my age (30s) answers the door, and, as my eyes tend toward the ground at people's doors, I notice the bare feet sticking out of her sweatpants have pink, painted toenails and the same tan as her face and arms. The tan is an unnatural, evenly distributed hue of orange, an effect the sun's uncapable of producing. It's not the luminescent orange from a bottle of rub-on tan per se, but probably from the carcinogenic coffin of a tanning shop. Either way, it's a tan that doesn't make much sense when you live in San Diego. The girl has a hint of what my brother Joey calls the "trailer-shaker" gene: trashy yet endearing.    

In my days delivering at the Encinitas store, it was not uncommon to find an apartment with a handful of dudes in their 20s sitting around playing video games while their girlfriends watched in boredom. Sometimes I was offered a beer, and other times a bong hit. I usually told the person offering that I couldn't drink while driving or that I didn't smoke pot, the latter of which would cause the offerer to become nervous and speed up the payment process. 

This species of pizza customer is unheard of in my experience out in Rancho Santa Fe, and I assume the wealthy prefer less conspicuous drugs, like cocaine and prescription pills. But there, just beyond the over-tan girl, sits her husky, bald-headed boyfriend on the couch, game controller in hand, Bluetooth-like headset in his ear, and a two-feet tall house bong on the coffee table. The girl seems too oblivious (stoned?) to realize I'm staring at the scene over her shoulder, and she giggles and pays without shame. She tips well, but I'm kind of offended she doesn't offer me a bong hit.

The night continues on, uneventful, until the my last delivery run. The manager gives me two deliveries to the same house and says, "Let's hope it's a father and son ordering and that they didn't know the other was ordering." I tell him that's quite a scenario he's come up with in his head to explain the double-ordering, and he says, "I've been at this a long time, Parker." 

No one answers the door when I arrive, so I call the number on one of the tickets. A 15-year-old boy with a peach fuzz mustache answers the phone, then comes down with his friend to let me in. I tell him about the two orders, and he yells to his dad, asking him if he ordered from THE Pizzeria. Yes, he did. "Uh oh," the kid and his friend say. The dad comes to the door and discovers his son has also ordered. He glares at his son, then says to me, "Well, this is a mess up. Can we send one back?" 

I tell him his son only ordered a small pizza ($11.27), while he ordered a large pizza and a salad ($35.56), without asking why the Pizzeria should eat the cost of his mistake. 

"Who's going to pay for this?" he asks. His son says he'll pay for his own order, and runs back upstairs to get cash. The dad signs his credit card slip, and asks if my tip's included. No. "Oh, I always thought it was. Isn't there a charge on there for delivery." I explain that, yes, there is a charge ($2.20), but it goes to the Pizzeria and the maintenance of the delivery vehicles. "That's no good," he says, and I think he's going to lecture me on the costs of delivery, but he adds, "I don't think I've tipped drivers before, then. Now I know." As he hands back the credit card slip ($3 tip), he looks toward the stairs on the left where his son disappeared, and says, "Great example of not communicating with your kids, huh?" I don't point out that this scenario might have more to do with his house size and the proliferation of teenage cell phone use than generational miscommunication. He takes the large pizza and salad, and walks the opposite direction from the stairs, toward his side of the house.

The kid runs down the stairs and joins his friend, who's been patiently waiting by the door. As he pays me he asks, like his father, if the tip's included, and I say no. He gives me two extra dollars for the tip and says, "I'm sorry my dad's an asshole."