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.