Number of Deliveries: 11
Sales: $380.67
Tips: $45.50
Hours: 3.78
Total Wage: $20.04 per hour
My first delivery is to an old couple. The man invites me inside and directs me to the kitchen. "You busy tonight?" he asks, as he hobbles behind me toward the kitchen. I turn around and ask him what he said. "Are you busy? Are you making a lot of money tonight?" he says.
"Oh. I just got to work. We're not that busy yet, but hopefully it will get busy later," I say.
The man has to be at least eighty. He hunches over the counter to sign the credit card slip, then turns to me in that stiff way old people have to turn their whole body just to turn their head, and he says, "I hope you make a lot of money tonight." He's put down a five dollar tip on an $18.72 order, so I'm well on my way.
"Thank you very much, sir," I say. "Have a good night." While I wish all my deliveries were to kind elderly people, the encounter makes me think of my girlfriend's volunteer work with people in hospice care. How most of them are bedridden and in pain, and while they enjoy her visits, they say they're ready to die, to be done with the thing. I think I relate more to elderly people because they've lived their lives, mostly lost their blind, exploitive ambitions, and they just want to exit life without suffering too much more. At thirty-six, I've lived a full life, experienced everything it has to offer, except having children, and I could easily die in peace tomorrow. God, that's sad but liberating. I drive on to my next delivery.
When I arrive at the Rancho Pacifica Gate, the effervescent African-American guard says, "Sorry, man. No one called for you." I think he's just joking around, one of those bantering small-talk jokes, like the "you got an extra pizza in the car?" type. Then I realize he means the residents didn't call to let him know I was coming, so he doesn't have the visitor pass printed out for me. I'm about to give him the address, when he says, "Last name. Just give me the last name." I do, and he disappears into the booth.
A minute or two later he reemerges and says in a dramatic fashion, "You know you live in a gated community. You know the rules." It seems he's as frustrated with the whole gated world as I am, though it provides him with a job. "Sorry, man. It's not our fault," he says to me, "they know they have to call." I tell him not to worry about it, that it's cool.
A few delivery runs later, I end up at the Rancho Pacifica gate again. The African-American guard says, "Second time, huh?"
"Yep," I say.
"Same thing," he says and shakes his head. Before he goes into the booth to call the irresponsible residents, he says, "Hey, you guys got some kind of Chinese pizza over there." I think for a second, then ask if he means the Thai Chicken pizza. "Yeah, yeah, that's the one with the peanut sauce, right?" he says. That's right. "How much is like a small of one of them?" I tell him I have no idea. "Could you bring me a small one of them? I'll pay you and everything." I tell him he can just call the pizzeria and order one. "Ah, I don't want to go through all of that," he says, and waves his hand in dismissal, like I've let him down.
Sorry, but everyone has rules to follow.
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