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.
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