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.
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