Day 116: September 24, 2009 (the man who eats baby buffalo steaks, and Glen, the rich jerk who becomes successful only when he's poor)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 6

Sales: $284.64

Tips: $39.50

Hours: 2.20

Total Wage: $25.95 per hour

On one of my first deliveries of the night, I find myself stuck at a driveway gate in the Cielo development, a gated community. That's right, I'm once again at a gate within a gate, and can't get in. Unlike regular gate call boxes, this one doesn't have a "call" button but a little label sticker that says call (619) 555-5555 (*not the real number) to get in. I dial the number from my cell phone, but no one answers. Though I think it's silly, I leave a voicemail telling them I'm at their gate. The ticket has a special note that says, "There at 6, not before." It's now 6:06 p.m., so you'd think they might be expecting me. I try the (619) number again, before dialing the (858) number on the ticket. After two attempts, a man answers, "Dr. K_____ speaking." I tell him I've been sitting at his gate, and he apologizes before giving me the gate code to enter. I'm wondering why he didn't just tell us the number when he placed his order.

When I pull up to the masonry mansion, I'm greeted by two old labs, one black, one yellow. I gather the food, then tell the dogs, "Come on, let's go." They follow me to the door, jumping up but not knocking me around. I'm greeted at the door by a white man in his forties wearing only running shorts and shoes. He has perfect, superhero hair, cut pecs, and muscular, shaved legs. I always want to ask guys like this how the hell they get in such great shape, assuming they subsist on diets of baby buffalo steaks and ten mile runs. He has that spacey, happy look I attribute to the ultra wealthy. 

He pays me, then another one of his dogs, a basset hound, decides to follow me to the car with the labs. The man calls out, "You better watch out; they'll eat you. Ha ha." I laugh and get into my car, thinking he could have given me a better tip for the gate inconvenience and entertaining his dogs.

On my way out to this house, there was a great special on NPR's Marketplace about rich people who've lost everything in the financial crisis. One particular story really stood out, that of Glen Pizzolorusso. Glen was the manager of a subprime mortgage sales team, making $100,000 a month. He was the prototypical young, rich, Wall Street asshole. He talked about how special he felt spending tons of money at Marquee, a super popular NYC nightclub: "We'd roll up at midnight with a line of 500 people deep out front. Walk right up to the door: 'Give me my table' . . . We ordered three, four bottles of Cristal at $1,000 per bottle. They bring it out––you know they're walking through the crowd, they're holding the bottles over their heads. There's firecrackers, sparklers . . . everyone's like, 'Whoa, who's the cool guys?' We're the cool guys."

His voice and story make me want to throw up or kick his ass or drive him to Harlem and drop him off with his bottles of Cristal. But then Glen recounts how he lost it all––the Porches, his house, his job––how he's been forcibly humbled, and has finally figured out what matters in life. He says, "None of the monetary stuff that we are preconditioned to think is important matters." 

That statement instantly reminds me of this passage about Seneca in Alain de Botton's Consolations of Philosophy: "It follows that wealthy individuals fearing the loss of their fortunes should never be reassured with remarks about the improbability of their ruin. They should spend a few days in a draughty room on a diet of thin soup and stale bread . . . The wealthy would, Seneca promised, soon come to an important realization: 'Is this really the condition that I feared?' Endure [this poverty] for three or four days at a time, sometimes for more . . . and I assure you . . . you will understand that a man's peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune" (97).

I wonder if the guy I just delivered to would still have the spacey, happy constitution if he lost everything. Maybe. Glen Pizzolorusso, who's stopped partying, lives with his wife and three kids in his father's old house, returned to school and now loves reading books on history and politics, goes on to say, "I have a beautiful family. That's success. I'm successful. And you can't tell me that I'm not." I grow teary-eyed, jealous of this new Glen, the one with the beautiful family, and I want to reach through the radio and hug him.  

Day 115: September 23, 2009 (feeling appreciated while relating to a gringo vato, and the men who make me crazy)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 9

Sales: $288.92

Tips: $53

Hours: 4.12 

Total Wage: $20.86 per hour

My first delivery of the night ends up being a single-bagger down to Cayote Ave., eight miles away in Rancho Penasquitos. That means a sixteen mile round-trip, while only getting paid $1.45 in gas commission. It happens. 

When I drive through this solidly middle-class neighborhood, I again notice the ordinary yards and multi-ethnic faces. I pull up to the driveway of my delivery and see two guys hanging out in a garage overstuffed with crap piled to the ceiling. In the middle of the storage, they've created a little chill-out nest with a red velour couch. A white man about my age, whose muscular physic is semi-camouflaged by the weight he's gained drinking beer in the garage, walks toward me wearing athletic shorts, calf-high socks, and slipper shoes. He looks like an intimidating gringo vato. His shaved head glistens in the sun, and his torso hair is slowly recovering from its last trim. I don't come from a people with hairy chests, so I don't understand the chest shaving phenomenon. I would sport my chest coat proudly if I had it (in the spirit of full disclosure, I do shave a small patch on my chest––in the name of symmetry––where a skin discoloration grows the only real chest hair I have).

His large, black friend, who looks like a not-so-intimidating Hootie from Hootie and the Blowfish, continues chilling on the garage couch. The shaved man in front of me says, "Sorry for the long drive. I know it's a long way." I suddenly like this guy. He gets it. I say it's cool, no big deal, and he writes in a tip on the credit card slip. "I appreciate it," he says. "This should help." I look down to see he's given me a $10.19 tip on his $29.81 order. I thank him twice, then get in my car.

It's interesting how people in your same social class tend to relate more to your situation and sometimes tip more than those who don't. While I'm often thanked by wealthy customers, I don't think I've ever had anyone in Cielo apologize or thank me specifically for coming all the way up there, then overtipping me. 

I guess the gringo vato relates to me in a way that I can't relate to Adam Levinson, the chief investment officer of The Fortress Investment Group, who was interviewed the other day on BBC Radio. He received $300 million in shares last year as a bonus (which he won't discuss), and still talks in a haughty voice that makes me want to reach through the radio and punch him. He's probably a bad tipper.

There are some ultra-wealthy people I can relate to, like John McAfee. He's a computer anti-virus software designer and owner of the McAfee company, who, in the same BBC program (at 13:49), says he started giving his stuff away and selling off all his property after having a market-crash-induced epiphany (his worth went from $400 million to $4 million). He realized his excesses––like owning six houses, two $17,000 watches, and closets full of things he hasn't looked at in ten years––didn't make sense in a world where people are starving and people in America aren't able to pay their mortgages. He also realized the insanity of consumption caused by marketing, such as paying $2.50 for a bottle of water, "which, fundamentally, is worth one-tenth of a cent." He says, "It rains water; it's the most plentiful substance on this planet, and marketers have told us we need to drink it out of a bottle. Why do we do that? We do that because we're told that's what we should do."   

This world and delivery zone need more gringos vatos and John McAfees and fewer Adam Levinsons and B. Joseph Whites––the University of Illinois president who resigned following reports that the university admitted wealthy and well-connected applicants over more qualified ones. I think I'll refill my water bottle from the tap, and pour a little out for the homies who get it.

Day 109: September 17, 2009 (plastic silverware and paper China for the check-bouncing woman, plus the dog serenade in G minor)

Position: Driver
Number of Deliveries: 10
Sales: $304.66
Tips: $44
Hours: 3.30
Total Wage: $21.33 per hour

Halfway through the night, I get a nightmare run. I know the first delivery is going to suck, because the ticket has more temporary notes in red ink on it than food: "Paying With Cash" twice; "No Checks!!!!!!"; "Bring Napkins"; "2nd Driveway. Park At Fence"; "Bring Plastic Spoons Forks Knives And Plates." Down below, in the permanent notes section, which usually lists cross streets, it says, "Check address every time. Check order! They Owe Us $ . . . Must Get Mngr. Do not accept checks! Check Returned 3-26-09." All this on an order for one small pizza, totaling $13.83.

I ask the manager what's up with the order, and she says, "Don't bring her all that stuff. We're not providing the utensils for her house. She only ordered a pizza. She's crazy."

When I get to the second driveway of the ranch house, I have no idea what "park at the fence means," so I stop at the entrance. The house looks half-abandoned. At the end of the short driveway, I see and old, wooden fence, and decide that's what she meant. I pull up, and am immediately greeted by a wild Australian Shepherd, the kind with the crazy, whitish-blue eyes and bushy coat that looks like a black and white picture of Monet's "Water Lillies." The dog barks incessantly at me. A haggard looking woman––her hair a gray tangled mess, a droopy black T-shirt exposing a scabbed over chest sore––lurches toward me, saying, "Did you bring me a menu." I look at the ticket and the long list of messages, none of which says anything about a menu.

"They didn't say anything about bringing you a menu," I say, as her dog continues trying to herd me along the driveway with its barking. I did throw in one plastic knife and one fork, as well as some napkins and a paper plate, trying to be fair. I take her cash, and jump back in my car before she can ask about spoons, red flakes, or Parmesan cheese. Her dog continues barking at me as she walks inside.

When I get to my next delivery, a black Lab picks up the barking solo where the other dog left off. I ring the doorbell and knock on the door, making the dog increase the volume and intensity of its song. It runs from room to room, trying to decide which is the best angle to most effectively bark at me. No one comes, so I call their phone. No answer. I walk along the front, and the dog follows from window to window, making sure I can still hear the rhythm.

I get in my car and back all the way down the driveway, and repark near their cars, thinking maybe they're in one of the rooms near the garage. The dog shows up at an open balcony above the garage, where I can hear its bark unencumbered by glass windows and wooden doors. It sounds much louder. I walk around the back of the house, and the dog is kind enough to follow me from window to window back there, too. I take a moment to enjoy their backyard view of dry brush along the hills and check out their red brick pool area. The dog apparently doesn't need a break from barking.

I call the manager and tell her no one's home. She calls them and leaves a message, saying I will only be there five more minutes, then I'm out. I start up the car, and a Suburban drives up behind me. I get out, and they drive right by me, on up the driveway to the front door, so I have to carry their food up there. I'm not happy at this point. The family hops out of the SUV and walks right by me, while the mom messes with something inside the car. They let the dog out of the house, and all but make love to the thing. The woman finally approaches to sign the credit card slip and get the food, saying, "You guys were more on the spot than she said you'd be." The old "see if we can beat the pizza guy home" trick, my least favorite. At forty-six minutes, I'm actually right on time.

I don't say anything about the ten minutes I spent wandering around their yard while the dog serenaded me, or how rude it was to pass me and make me walk the food up here, nor do I take comfort in winning our race to her house. I just smile and say thank you, as if disrespecting the pizza man is the most natural thing in the world.

Day 108: September 16, 2009 (your credit is no good here, and neither are your checks; except yours, of course)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 14

Sales: $412.59

Tips: $60

Hours: 4.75

Total Wage: $20.63 per hour

I can't say I know right away this is going to be bad, but I have an order with a wrong credit card number and the woman won't answer her phone. The manager says the woman was driving when she told her the number and didn't pay attention when she read it back to her. I can either wait for the woman to return my call or phone the Pizzeria with the correct number when I'm at the door. To save time, I opt for the latter.

When I get to the house, it takes a few minutes for anyone to answer the door. An older Mexican woman wearing an apron takes the food and says thank you. I tell her the credit card number didn't work, and she looks confused. Why I don't try out the Spanish I'm learning in my class right now, escapes me. With the woman standing there, I call the Pizzeria. While I'm waiting for the manager, an Asian-American woman about my age walks by and sets up her computer on the long, wooden dining table that looks like it belongs in Hearst Castle. I tell the manager what's going on, and she asks who is there. I hesitate, then say, "It appears to only be . . . employees." I almost said servants. I assume the Asian-American woman is a tutor. A young blonde boy walks by dialing a cell phone, saying something about his mother. I tell the manager that the kid's calling his mom, I think.

I stand around waiting, shifting, while the Mexican woman stands next to me, also shifting but not speaking. We smile at each other. She asks me how much the order costs. "$31.33," I say. When the kid comes back and says he can't reach his mother, the maid, in heavily accented but not broken English, says, "I'll just pay, then she can pay me back." She walks across the room and pulls crisp bills out of her purse, then hands me $32. Even though the ticket said "add a $5 tip," I don't mention anything about a propiña to the woman. I thank her, and walk away with my head down, feeling like I just lost five dollars and precious delivery time. 

Side note: the woman who placed the order calls later and yells at the manager about being double charged. When she's told her credit card wasn't charged because we had the wrong number, she moans about the inconvenience of having to pay back her maid. I wish I would have received that call.

On my next delivery run, I arrive at the house of a locally famous car dealership owner. Actually, the family owns multiple car dealerships all over town, and I recognize the woman at the door from their TV commercials. She shows up with her checkbook. We had stopped accepting checks several months ago, because of the number of bounced checks we received, but we recently started taking them again. 

My friend and fellow driver, Mike, had a customer lose his cool on him a few weeks ago when Mike said we no longer accepted checks. When he told him that, yes, even in Rancho people bounce checks, the man said, "Can I just pay you tomorrow?" like some kind of Wimpy from the old Popeye cartoons ("I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"). When Mike said that, too, was not possible, the man said, "Listen, my house is worth over five million dollars; I think I'm good for it." Nope. 

I'm disappointed to see Mrs. Car Dealership hasn't filled out her check, even though we told her the total on the phone. Once she fills it out, I have to ask her to put her driver's license number on it, and she looks inconvenienced. Trust me, it's a bigger inconvenience for me, as the time ticks by. She tells Azucar, the yellow lab barking at me, to stay inside, then she disappears to hunt down her license. 

While I'm standing there, I have plenty of time to consider why people still pay with checks. The answer: I have no idea why people still pay for anything with checks, except rent or bills. One woman recently tried to pay at the Pizzeria counter for a $4.35 order with a check from Lakeside, CA, which is outside of our delivery zone and another no-no. I commented to my co-workers that her attempt reminded me of the Dude in The Big Lebowski paying for a carton of milk with a $.69 check. Mrs. Car Dealership returns with her properly filled out check and a smile, matched by mine when I see the 20% tip. 

Day 106: September 14, 2009 (the man who was attacked)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 17

Sales: $877.91

Tips: $133

Hours: 7.41

Total Wage: $25.95 per hour

The attack was over by the time I arrived, but the scene wasn't. A large, dust covered, tattooed man at the construction site tells me where to set the food down, that it will be just a minute because of the attack. "It's not that bad. Just scraped him, and he's crying," says the tattooed man. "He'll pay you over there," he says, nodding toward the neighbor's driveway. I let out a nervous laugh to show solidarity with the real men, the ones who don't cry. But when I walk down the dirt driveway under construction and turn the corner of the green Cyclone fence, I see the man crumpled on the driveway, holding his own hand and being comforted by the foreman and an older couple. 

Forget about the $45 tip I received earlier this morning at Horizon Prep, this man needs help. As I approach, the man who was attacked lifts his hand from his right forearm, and I see puncture wounds. "Jesus, did he get you there too?" says the old man. "Shit." The man who was attacked shakes uncontrollably, tears still forcing their way out, when I notice a small chunk of flesh missing from his middle finger, which is now a red half-circle. He's Asian-American, close to forty, and his baseball cap dangles from his ponytail, somehow still hanging on. The foreman is an old, solid surfer type, his blond-gray hair poking out from his dirty black visor. He pours peroxide on the hurt man's finger, and when the man who was attacked lifts his hand from his forearm again, I can see the puncture wounds are multiple and swelling, the shape of the dog's teeth.

The older couple, who own the dog, keep saying "shit." Shit, shit, shit. And it's a weird kind of shit: part sympathy for the victim and the blood; part worry that their dog will be euthanized; part worry about being sued. The fact that they're rich makes the middle scenario unlikely but the last quite possible.

The man who was attacked is calm now, saying, "It was my fault," and asking for gauze as his middle finger continues to drip blood. The woman makes the scene more tense by being hysterical, going inside and getting an ice pack and gauze, but returning to say, "Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh my God." The man who was attacked bandages his own finger, only asking the foreman to cut the gauze lengthwise so he can tie it off after he wraps his finger. The foreman splits it with a box cutter, then helps tie it.

"Shit," the old man says as he takes a dollop of Neosporin and gobs it onto the attacked man's forearm. I just read the instructions to Neosporin last week when I jammed my knuckle into the doorway, and you're not supposed to apply it liberally. So I grab a paper towel from the nearby roll and bend down to wipe away the excess Neosporin from the man's forearm. I feel like a field doctor.

"He shouldn't do that," the old man says. "We've had him trained." We all look at the old man, who still kneels next to the man who was attacked. "We take him every Tuesday to have that aggressive crap taken out of him." He pauses. "I guess that's money wasted. Shit." The man who was attacked blames himself again, saying it isn't the dog's fault, that he reached for the owner and the dog protected him. I ask what kind of dog it is, but the woman is still pacing and panicking and the old man is still cursing, so no one hears or answers me. I picture a German Shepherd.

Since it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm the only driver, I need to get paid and get going, but I can't ask. The old man keeps letting out heavy breaths of frustration and "shits," for the victim, his dog, or his money, I'm not sure. The man who was attacked says, "I thought he took my finger off." That would explain the crying and shaking.

When things calm down, the foreman finally stands up and pulls out his wallet. "How much do I owe you?" 

"$82.87."

He pulls all the bills out of his wallet and counts out eighty-three dollars, then fingers the other five ones before handing them to me and saying, "That's all I got." Under the circumstances, the small tip doesn't seem so bad. After all, I wasn't attacked by the dog, and I still have all five fingers to count the tip.

Day 102: September 10, 2009 (25% of black people can't afford chipping greens, single people aren't poor, old people are cheap, and I wake the baby)

Position: Driver
Number of Deliveries: 14
Sales: $451.87
Tips: $69
Hours: 4.62
Total Wage: $22.94 per hour

As I pull into the driveway at my first delivery of the night, I admire the 4-hole golf, chipping course on the right side of the house. While the hilly course is real lawn, the greens and mini-tee boxes are artificial turf. I picture rich, white men wearing pastel polo shirts and holding imported beers and cigars, laughing and betting hundred dollar bills as they compete on their short game. So I'm surprised when I'm taking the food out of my car, to turn around and see an atheltic, light-skinned, black man sporting new Nikes and a handful of cash.

Of course my surprise isn't only born out of cultural racism but also experience: it's rare to see African-American faces in these houses, and they're usually attached to professional athletes or entertainers. That should come as no surprise, as the new 2008 census numbers on poverty came out today, and while the national numbers of people in poverty rose almost 6% (from 12.5% to 13.2%, or from 37.3 million people to 39.8 million––a 2.5 million person increase) from the previous year (2007), the number of blacks living in poverty is holding steady at 25%. That's right, while the number for "non-Hispanic whites" living in poverty is 8.6%, one in every four black people in America lives in poverty. Holy crap!

And while this Yahoo News story lists the poverty lines for families of four, three, and two ($22,025, $17,163, and $14,051, respectively––I guess in their logic, the more of you there are, the less each person needs), they fail to list what qualifies someone as a single poor person. Can a single person not experience poverty? Changing from a university Teaching Associate and Graduate Assistant to a pizza delivery driver, I have risen out of single person poverty (which I'm setting at my gross income last year: $10,216) this year, already grossing more than an impoverished couple. But I, along with 46.3 million other Americans, according to the story, am still without health insurance. Hopefully, I won't get hurt and that spot on my right thigh isn't skin cancer.

On my second delivery, an elderly man comes to the door at the same time his teenage grandson skateboards up from the driveway. "How much do I owe you?" the decrepit, old man asks. I tell him the total, $22.63, and he says, "It's $18.79 for the pizza. How'd we get to twenty-two dollars?" Because of tax and the delivery charge. "Oh," he says, and hobbles off.

"It's actually closer to twenty-three dollars," I say.

He turns around, confused. His grandson says louder, "It's twenty-three, grandpop." The man disapears into his nice house, and I'm left standing with the awkward teen who looks as if puberty has left him somewhere between a child and a linebacker. A few seconds of silence passes, then he says, "The Chargers play Monday."

"Yep," I say, and look around him for the old man, hoping he's going to include a tip.

"I heard they might start Sproles instead of LaDanian," he says.

"Really?" I feign interest. Thank God, his grandpa shows back up, but he's only carrying exactly twenty-three dollars. I thank them, and drive away, bummed.

Once I get back to the store, I have to wait ten minutes for a second order to be cooked, because the address is near the order I'm taking. The problem is, when I arrive at that second delivery out in Crosby, the man at the door looks at me and says, "We didn't order any food." I show him the address and the order, and he says, "This is the right address, but we're definitely not the L_____s."

I call the phone number, and Mr. L_____ tells me that I'm at his old address, that he now lives at Morgan Run, clear on the other side of the delivery zone. Apparently, he wasn't paying attention when they read his address back to him, or one of the phone girls didn't put in the new address. Either way, I call the Pizzeria, and it's so busy, the manager asks me to stop by on my way to Morgan Run and get more deliveries headed that way. Trying to get back to the Pizzeria, I get stuck behind an SUV going 35 m.p.h. in a 45 m.p.h. zone. My sour mood increases.

But I notice a grasshopper has hitched a ride on my windshield, holding tight, even at 50 m.p.h., and that makes me think of the old 1970s "Kung Fu" TV show and "young grasshopper." This sucker rides with me from the Crosby to the Pizzeria to Solana Beach and back to the Pizzeria, long enough to change my mood from sour to happy. Lesson learned, Master Po.

Near the end of the night, as I'm approaching a pitch dark doorway, I trip on a small step and land on my knees and elbow, and the pizza bag flies forward but lands upright. When I hit, I let out a loud yell/groan. I collect myself and the pizza bag, and crawl around feeling for my my pen. I stand up just as the man turns on the light and opens the door. He looks like a younger version of my uncle Gerald, only angry. "Hello," I say, trying to act casual.

"What was all that yelling?" he asks.

"I tripped over your step, because I couldn't see."

He turns to his wife, as if it's all her fault, and says, "We should have had the light on." He steps toward her. "Did the baby wake up?" She nods, yes, and he turns around to glare at me. He takes the credit card slip, and as he signs it, he says, "Dammit."

"Are you okay?" his wife asks, standing over by the couch.

"Yeah, I just landed on my knees," I say.

The man now looks concerned. "Oh . . . are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, thank you," I say, and head out, thinking his $2 tip won't even pay for Band-Aids.

Day 99: September 7, 2009 (the temptation of gongs, warriors who guard ponds, fantasy fans, and the man who guards the end of the world)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 18

Sales: $889.62

Tips: $115

Hours: 7.58

Total Wage: $23.17 per hour

It's Labor Day, and I'm working an all day driving shift while driver Alex is out recovering from knee surgery. Early on, I get a delivery to a mansion with a long steep driveway, and when I reach the top, I see it's one of those modern white houses with rectangular edges. Next to the front door hangs a full-sized gong, like something you'd see in a Buddhist monastery. The sun-faded mallet hangs from a hook on the nearby stanchion. I eye the electric doorbell but would rather use the gong. I ring the doorbell. While I wait for them to answer, I can't resist. I slip the mallet, which is heavier than I imagined, from the hook, and lightly bang the gong. An unexpectedly deep sound resonates from the vertical metal basket-like gong. I'm hoping the vibrations cease before the people open the door, or they will at least understand my need to bang the gong. 

A short, husky blond woman answers the door, asks how much she owes, then disappears. I marvel at her entranceway, made of a rough, black stone that protrudes through the back, glass wall and into a triangular, enclosed pond. Standing guard in the pond are two human-sized warriors made out of black stone, who look to be from the Chinese Terra Cotta Army. One is bending down, while the other stands behind him. They both look directly at me, possibly disapproving of my unauthorized banging of the ancient gong.

I hear the woman and her friend discussing who has what cash, and she returns with the bills waded up. Over her shoulder, a large, half-abstract, half-image painting that looks like it belongs in the SFMOMA hangs on the wall. Between the gong, the soldiers, and the painting, I'd say she has more invested in them than most people do in their cars. I count the cash on the way to the car, and am disappointed to see she didn't invest much in me: $3.36 (6%) on a $56.64 order. I look back at the closed door. The gong calls to me again but for a louder bang this time. I hesitate before ignoring the call, and leave. 

On my next run, I get an order for $137.10, and am expecting to make up ground on my tips, though the woman who ordered doesn't even know she's in the Santa Monica development and not the Santa Luz, like she said. When I pull into the driveway, I see men in the garage seated around plastic party tables in the shape of a wide U. The woman emerges from the garage wearing full San Diego Charges gear, including lightning bolt earrings, and asks me to follow her into the garage. The men wear football jerseys from various teams, and pinned to the white, garage storage closets is a large paper board that says "ABC Fantasy Football." The men take turns calling out players, and while one guy writes down the name, the others "Oh" and "Ah" and discuss the merits of the player chosen. My God, it's a fantasy football league draft, almost as professional as the real thing. Their attention turns toward me, and I get a few shouts of "The pizza guy!" before one asks me how I am. 

I unload the food, and when I ask for the slip back, I see the Chargers girl has penned in a $6 tip (4%). The cheerful atmosphere of the place has lost its charm on me now, and I drive away thinking those people are pitiable. My overall mood shifts because of the bad tips I'm getting, and that makes me feel like the pathetic one.

The tipping gets better throughout the day, so I had no reason to fret earlier. One of my last deliveries of the night is to the Del Mar Country Club. The excitable old man who sometimes guards the gate, comes bouncing out of the guard shack. I've heard drivers say some pretty negative things about the guy, but I find him entertaining. He shifts onto his toes and asks me where I'm headed, trying to focus on my face through the thick lenses slipping from their perch on his nose. I tell him, and he hustles into the shack to call. I can tell they're not answering, because he keeps looking from inside the shack back out to me, and shifting his weight from heels to toes to heels. You get the feeling his actions somehow have an effect on the outcome of the entire world. 

After a few minutes and several calls, he reemerges from the shack, and you can see the internal struggle in his face as his makes the all important decision of whether or not to let me in. He has the ability, like me and some of my fellow drivers, to create the illusion that his is the toughest job on the planet. He says, "They called you for the pizza, right?" I laugh, then hold out the receipt, showing him the order and address. I'm thinking in his mind he imagines we probably have a machine that generates these fake tickets as an international conspiracy to enter the sacred grounds of the Del Mar Country Club. "So I'm sure they're there," he concludes. He asks for my first and last name, which is customary at this gate, and for one of the first times, I give him my real name. I'd hate to make his job any more difficult by giving him my usual alias: John Maplethorpe. He lets me in, knowing it could be the decision that might not end the world but very well could end his employment with the DMCC.

Day 95: September 3, 2009 (automatic tips from the coolest couple in Rancho, knocking on heaven's door, Tommy Bahama gets drunk, and 12604 ≠ 12640),

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 12

Sales: $359.98

Tips: $65.50

Hours: 3.60

Total Wage: $26.19 per hour

"That's an automatic eight bucks," Matt, a driver, says to me while I'm running a credit card. 

"Really?" I say, excited about the prospect of a good tip. Some people order so often, you can almost predict what they'll order and how much they'll tip.

"Yeah, just be sure to compliment him on his dogs. He has two Boxers," Matt says. "I've been laying it on thick around here lately, especially while serving, feeding people all the lines, and I'm getting better tips."

When I get to the house, a very attractive, dark-haired woman in her 40s answers the door. She commands the two, aging Boxers to stay on the stairs, and they obey. "How are you?" she says in a kind voice. I tell her I'm good, as she takes the food and places it on the entryway table. The two dogs stare me down and shake their bodies, wanting to charge at me for some serious lovin'. But they stay put. 

She comes back to get the pen and credit card slip, then signs it on the entryway table. As she hands it back, her equally cool and handsome husband, with slightly salt and peppered hair, joins her, and says, "Did you give him a huge, huge tip?" She looks at the slip, then to me, embarrassed. She's penned in the predicted $8, so she tells him, "I think so." He winks at me. She's about to close the door, and I ask for my pen back, which she's left on the table. "Oh, details," she says as she fetches the pen. I thank them, and we say our goodbyes, but as I climb into my car, the man emerges from the house to say thank you one more time. God, they must be the coolest people in all of Rancho Santa Fe.

A little while later, I arrive at a house on Rancho Diegueno, right up the street from the Pizzeria. The woman beeps me in through her gate, and after I park and reach in the pizza bag for her food, I realize I forgot her pasta. Shit. She's standing on the porch and she knows I'm there, or else I could just return to the Pizzeria real quick and be back without anyone being the wiser. "You don't have to run," she says, as I hustle her food over to her. 

"I forgot your pasta; I'll be right back." I hand her the food and she says it's okay. She pays me, and when I say I'll be back in five minutes, climbing into my car, she says, "I thought you forgot it in the car. It's at the Pizzeria?" Yes. The kindness on her face melts to disappointment. 

I hurry to get her pasta, and when she beeps me in this time, I have a chance to check out the dog training course encompassing her front lawn. I assume she must have some Best In Show dog action going on in her house to commit so much of her yard to the course. I don't bother to ask her about it, though, because I'm trying to get out of here and on with my deliveries.

Halfway through the night I get an order for the house behind us, and I'm excited, because construction's been going on over there all year, and I'm curious to see inside the gates. Some days last spring, the woman ordered hundreds of dollars worth of food multiple times to feed the construction workers. We're talking some serious cash. 

The order ticket says, "MAIN GATE NOT SIDE GATE." The gate facing the back of the Pizzeria turns out to be the "side gate," and when I pull around the corner, I see the main gate: an upside down U entryway with a landscaped call box island, facing two, massive, carved wooden gates, which turn out to be 4"-6" thick. On the side wall, a tile plaque reads, "The Belmont." My God, their house has a name. 

As the wooden gates of heaven open, I'm staring down a long tan driveway flanked on both sides by some of the thickest palm trees I've ever seen. Way down at the other end, a marble wall fountain spurts its water at the back of a beautiful, rough marble round-about. No house is in sight. I begin the long, slow drive, and when I reach the fountain and turn right up the driveway toward the main house, I get a view of the professionally manicured grounds and matching horse stables that are nicer than most people's houses. The main house sits at the top of a hill overlooking the property. I pull my motorboat sounding, unwashed, oxidized Volvo up by the front door, and hop out with the food.

I ring the doorbell, but no one comes right away. This is an annoyance that happens often around here: people buzz you in at their gate, then aren't at the front door when you arrive. A young, doughy girl wearing horse-print pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt answers the door, then apathetically goes to look for her brother. The entryway looks like a Four Seasons Resort: marble floors; dual marble staircases with wrought-iron banisters; a baby grand piano at the base of the left staircase, and a full-sized harp at the base of the right; above, a massive chandelier hangs in the center.

A teenage boy with frighteningly Aryan features––piercing blue eyes, bright blond hair, and squared cheeks and jawbone––arrives at the door and asks me to wait while they find money. I assume his sister might be in her bedroom right now, peeling some hundreds off her wallpaper. Their collaboration pays off, and they give me a nice tip and thank me. A small amount of jealousy arrises in me, but is quickly extinguished by a weird feeling of sympathy: that somehow their fortune is actually a misfortune. I admire the expensive palm trees again on my long drive out.

My next delivery is in Rancho Pacifica. A man in his sixties answers the door wearing an orange Tommy Bahama shirt with a small wet mark on the front. He walks out toward me and gets really close to ask how much he owes me. I tell him $26.65, and he says, "Can you do a fifty?" leaning even closer to me. I step back, and when he begins digging through his cash, I realize the man is drunk. Really drunk. He holds out a five dollar bill. 

"That's a five, not a fifty," I say. 

He stares at it, as if he can pull a David Blaine and turn the bill into a fifty. "Oh." He sways, then digs the fifty out of his messy billfold. I give him change, and he holds out the ones in a crumpled fan. I assume he wants to give them to me, so I pull two from his loose grip. He sways, then pushes his hand toward me again without saying anything, and I pull another dollar from the cash wad. I look at the wet mark on his shirt, which I now realize must be from his drink, possibly Scotch. Without saying anything, he turns and stumbles inside, off to eat a pizza he won't remember.

My night ends in confusion. I arrive at an apartment complex, and find the building marked 12604, but there's no apartment #9. I call the number, but no answer. I call the Pizzeria, and the manger can't clear things up. We have some new kids working the front counter, and I don't mean to make generalizations, but some of these Rancho kids struggle with the basics. I can only hope they make good marriages someday. I drive around until I find a map to the complex. Oh, that makes since, apartment #9 is in building 12640; the girl who took the order just mixed up some numbers.

I knock on apartment #9, and a confused woman wearing a nightgown answers the door. "I didn't order pizza," she says. I explain my dilemma, but she's as confused as I am. Now I'm getting upset. It's late, I want to go home, and now I'm dealing with this crap because someone can't type in numbers correctly. I drive over and look at the map again. I call the phone number on the ticket, and a guy answers. "What? No, we're in building 12604, but the apartment number is 389." Only three hundred and eighty numbers off. Not bad. I hurry over there and find two middle-aged men in sweatpants, sitting around a messy apartment with laptops open on TV tray stands. "Hurry," one says to the other. 

"I'm trying, but I want to give him a good tip." 

The first one looks at me and says, "We're in an online poker tournament," then turns to his friend. "The next round's about to start." For some reason, the whole scene makes me melancholy, and I can't figure out if it's because the grown men and their situation strikes me as pathetic, or because there's something touching about two guys doing what they want, how they want. 

Day 94: September 2, 2009 (Queen Calafia's doctors, bloody knuckles, and Little Caesar's in outer space)

 A.M. 

Position: Server/Accidental Driver

Number of Tables/Deliveries: 16 tables/2 Deliveries

Sales: $275.86 tables/$242.11 deliveries ($517.97 total)

Tips: $61 Serving/$26 Driving ($87 total)

Hours: 5.10

Total Wage: $25.06 per hour

I come in this morning to cover another of Claudio's serving shifts, but the deliveries are going off so much that the manager asks me to take some. The two large orders I get are "timed," meaning they have to be there by certain times, since they're for corporations/offices that have limited lunch windows. I'm scampering to get everything together quickly, and when I run inside to grab the last of the food, I slam my left hand into the metal lock receiver on the door jamb, tearing back the skin on my middle knuckle. I'm powering through the pain, because I've got an important job to do and hungry doctors await, but the blood seeping from under the torn skin isn't going to be attractive when I serve the rest of the day. 

When I arrive at the doctor's office, I find an entire waiting room full of various women dressed in colorful, printed scrubs having a meeting. I'm late, even though I made it in the prescribed time, because they wanted the food before the meeting started. The women look perturbed and hungry. I have to cut through the meeting to reach the back reception area, where a couple more women debate who's going to sign. Two beautiful, professional women running the meeting have more official, less colorful lab coats on, so I assume they are the doctors. I look around the room at all the women, and feel like I'm in Queen Calafia's doctor's office, which makes me nervous. One woman finally takes the credit slip with authority and signs, penning in a $10 tip on the $155.59 order. Ouch. It's okay, because I still have my life (men are killed after mating on Queen Calafia's Island), and the second order I deliver is $86.52 and they give me a $16 tip. The world balances itself out.

P.M.

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 6

Sales: $239.34

Tips: $26

Hours: 2.77

Total Wage: $17.39 per hour

I only have three delivery runs tonight, since I served all day and we're not allowed to get overtime. On my last delivery of the night, a small, wiry, blond haired woman answers the door and says, "Hold on a minute, ha. I'll be right back, ha. I'm not going to take the food, and I'll tell you why." She shuts the door, and I'm left there to contemplate the big mystery of why she won't take the food. I assume she's going to pay for it and have me deliver the food around the house to a guest house in the back or something. It wouldn't be the first time.

She reappears with a hundred dollar bill, and says, "The reason why I didn't want to take the food yet, ha, is that we own fifteen Little Caesar's in the Bakersfield area of Central California." She speaks with this disjointed, neurotic voice, like Woody Allen's character Annie Hall. "One of our drivers, ha, took a fifty dollar order to a house, and, ha, the people closed the door without paying, ha. They wouldn't, ha, answer the door. The store called the police, ha, and everything, but they couldn't do anything because, ha, the people wouldn't answer the door."

So she's trying to teach me how to do my job, I guess. "I grew up in Fresno," I say, "so I know Bakersfield."

"Oh, you did? Ha, yes, we have store's all around Bakersfield. Well, several in Bakersfield and then, you know, Taft and all that." While I've heard of Taft, I have no idea where it is. "We've never tried your pizza before," she continues. "Well, ha, there aren't any Little Caesar's around here, so we, ha, we had to try yours," she says, as if I'll call the corporate offices and report her pizza treason. "Actually, we own five more Little Caesar's down here in San Diego, but, ha, they're not around this area, ha." It's okay, I want to tell her. Enjoy our pizza.

I thank her for her generous $11.73 tip, but right when I get in my car, she comes dashing out of the mansion. "I didn't order a salad," she hollers, then looks in the bag. I tell her it's the topping for the salad pizza, that we don't put it on the hot dough because the lettuce would wilt and compost by the time it got to her house. "Oh, thank you, ha. Of course, ha. Goodnight."

I'm always surprised by the number of business owners I meet who are completely out of their minds. Without any natural business sense, some seem to fumble through life, their businesses thriving despite their own best efforts to sabotage them through their own insanity and being spacey. Kind of makes me believe in pure fate and wonder where I went wrong in life.

Day 92: August 31, 2009 ("Horses? We can't afford to lose no horses." -Blazing Saddles)

A.M.

Position: Server

Number of Tables: 16

Sales: $282.16

Tips: $62

Hours: 4.90

Total Wage: $20.65 per hour

Claudio, an immigrant server and driver from Brazil, is out on another vacation, so I get to cover two of his serving shifts this week. Sometime around Christmas, he went to Brazil for five weeks, and last month he went to New York for a week. This time, a friend has invited him on a paid Bahama cruise, because she recently broke up with her boyfriend. Yes, life is good at the Pizzeria.

P.M.

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 7

Sales: $178.64

Tips: $28

Hours: 2.65

Total Wage: $18.57 per hour

I take an hour-long break outside, reading Slaughterhouse-Five ("Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time . . .") and intermittently napping by placing my head on a table before beginning my nighttime driving shift. 

On my second delivery run of the night, I have a three-bagger spread out across our delivery zone. The first one is so far to the northwest that it falls on the border of our Encinitas store's zone. A cryptic note typed on the ticket reads: "GATE 1, CODE #1973, SECOND ON THE RIGHT"; "WHITE COTTAGE." 

When I finally make it to El Camino Del Norte, I see an open gate with the address number on it, so I turn in. There are no other markings on the gate, so I have no idea if it's "gate 1" or not. I find myself in the middle of a massive, hilly, horse ranch, with houses dotting the property between large dirt corrals and white fencing. I cruise through the property on the lookout for the white cottage, but end up at a split without sighting it. I call, and the woman asks if I entered through gate 1. I tell her I have no idea, but I'm facing a horse racing track and there's a barn to my left with tall haystacks, and a tan house off in the distance. "I have no idea where you are," she says. How big is this property, and how many horse racing tracks can there be out here? 

In a frustrated tone, I describe how I got to where I am, and she says, "No, no, you came through gate 3. You need to go back out and continue down the road to gate 1." I ask her if it's marked with a number, since gate 3 clearly wasn't. "Yes, and there are for sale signs in front of gate 1." Okay, I'm on my way. I turn back onto El Camino Del Norte and head west. I pass another gate, red brick with the address number but no gate number. How much farther can gate 1 be? I have two other deliveries with me, and I assume even when I get through gate 1, if I ever find it, I will still have to search for the cottage. People are going to be pissed on both ends of this run.

I finally see a gate with for sale signs out front. I pull up to the voice box, and I see a small #1 hanging from the box. Yeah, it's really marked clearly. I ring the house from the gate, and they tell me to look for the white cottage on the right. I drive up the road on the property, passing more barns and houses, and easily find the cottage. They are acres away from the property's racetrack, and maybe they've never even seen it. This must be some kind of subdivided dude ranch. I make it to the cottage and my other deliveries, and no one complains.

While driving home tonight, a truck towing a long horse trailer pulls out in front of me along El Camino Real and lumbers along the roads toward the Del Mar Racetrack at 25-35 m.p.h. Just my luck. But then I realize, since it's racing season, that the trailer probably contains expensive racehorses, upwards of $100,000 each, and I would drive that slow too if I had such precious, expensive cargo. But the truth is, according to this New York Times article, that racehorses fetch from one hundred thousand dollars to one million each, with an average at the Keeneland sale being $710, 247. 

You know what the crazy thing is about those prices? They kill these horses all the time. It's the dirty secret of horse racing, highlighted only during seasons like this year's Del Mar races, where they've lost eight horses in the first nine days of racing. KPBS has a wonderful article you can read or listen to online, called, "Is Horse Racing Safe?" As I said, this phenomenon only gets highlighted in year's like this, when so many horses die so early on and surpass the average loss for the whole season, which is eight. I remember this happening several years ago, and the wealthy horse owners' argument was that they're really animal lovers, that it's not about the money. 

Maybe the sport doesn't raise the ire of the public like dog fighting, because it's not being done by poor people, or in Michael Vick's case, rich black people. No, owners of racing horses, "the sport of kings," are no Johnny Appleseeds, a vegetarian who reportedly refused to ride horses. According to this article, "Johnny Appleseed, Orchardist," "If he witnessed or heard of the ill-treatment of a horse, he offered to buy the animal or to find a kinder owner elsewhere." Maybe all those rich, animal loving, horse owners could buy those expensive horses and free them on a thousand acre ranch to watch them run around. That would be a cool sight.

I try to imagine a NASCAR season where eight racers die in the first nine races. But there was so much outcry about the death of the beloved racer Dale Earnhardt in 2001, new safety features were added to every car. And those are people who choose to get behind the wheel of race cars and drive them 200 m.p.h. 

Don't get me wrong, I've been to the horse races multiple years, and there's nothing more exciting than being on the rail and seeing a pack of horses stampede by at close to 40 m.p.h. But I can't rationalize killing that many animals for my own entertainment, and I really can't understand the egos and greed that motivate people to throw millions of dollars at horses they're willing to kill. 

As I follow the horse trailer along Via De La Valle, watching it kick up the dirt left on the road by other trailers, I hope the horses inside have a safe ride and survive the season, and I wish the tips in my pocket were enough to create my own horse ranch: The Appleseed.

Day 91: August 30, 2009 (people's stupidity causes ethical dilemmas and existential crises)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 9

Sales: $390.39

Tips: $116

Hours: 3.70

Total Wage: $39.35 per hour

On my first delivery of the night, I find myself at a yard gate, wondering if a large dog resides on the other side. I can't get to the front door without entering the yard. I step inside and whistle. No jangling of dog collars, no barks, nothing. I start for the door, but then stop, thinking it's better to be safe. I walk back outside and call the woman, telling her I'm at the gate. "Oh, good," she says, not mentioning anything about dogs. I assume rich people are more concerned about being sued, so they're more responsible with their dogs. I walk back into the yard, and when I'm on my way to the front door, I notice the rest of the yard is fenced off from this entrance area by a tall iron fence. My caution was unwarranted.

The woman who answers the door looks to be in her 70s, her pale face and skin drawn down like the mummies in the Museo de Las Momias in Guanajuato, Mexico. She has a thin stack of bills in her hand, which she looks at, then trades me for the two pastas, cookies, and slice of carrot cake. We exchange thanks, and I fan the bills to see she's given me one fifty, two twenties, and one five, or $95 for a $30.95 order. 

When faced with moral or ethical choices, I usually try and do the right thing. When I get a twenty dollar "bank" at the beginning of the night with an extra dollar in it, I give back the dollar; when the manager messes up in my favor while checking out, I say something. Maybe because I know whom that will affect––the owners of the restaurant––but mostly I want to do the right thing. When I'm undercharged at a store or receive too much change, I usually speak up. Sometimes I don't. And then there's those times when you wished you didn't say anything. 

When I worked at a country club in Fresno, I once found an envelope stuffed with over two hundred dollars in cash, someone's golf tournament winnings. I had spent the weekend being mistreated and undertipped by these drunk men, while I watched them overtip and harass female co-workers (one co-worker made $200 in tips while I made $11 doing the same job), and a member even offered a female co-worker $200 to go home with him. This is what I don't like about the wealthy: they think everything and everyone has a price. So I could have easily slipped that envelope into my pocket and no one would have been the wiser (the man who dropped it was likely plastered). But I gave it to my boss, who seemed shocked by my honesty. The next day, he said whom the money belonged to, and handed me a $20 bill from the man as a reward. I didn't point out that $20 amounted to less than a 10% tip. I felt like I should have kept the money.  

I once had a history teacher who said when you don't do the right thing, you're selling yourself out for however small the amount is. When he was charged twenty dollars for a cab from the airport to his hotel in L.A., then charged fifteen dollars by another cab heading back, he paid the second cabbie twenty dollars in order to not feel ripped off by the first cab. I always think of that when faced with these situations.

The mummified woman closes the door before I have a chance to say anything. I start walking to my car, but turn around to go ask if this is right. Nothing about the bills makes sense. Two twenties would have covered it, so why the fifty and the five? 

She's a grown woman, even if it's a mistake, it's her dumb fault, an angry voice says in my head. You should make sure, a more soprano, kinder voice says. But that's wasting my time. It's the right thing to do. When people tip too little, I don't say anything; I'm not allowed to. Why shouldn't it go both ways? And I'm growing to resent these Rancho people. I'm going to take this as luck, as the universe balancing things out. Why question luck? Because you know it might be a mistake. What if she's suffering from dementia, like your grandma? Shit. I look at the massive house. She can afford it. Maybe she meant it. I've got to go. I leave.

This decision will stay with me for days. I tell a co-worker tonight what happened, just to test the ethical waters, and he just says, "Cool." But the next day, I will think of calling the woman and asking her if she meant to give me a $64.05 tip or not. But I don't. This time, I feel like I failed, and my sell-out price is only sixty-four dollars.