Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 113
Hours Volunteered: 1.5
EDD Check: $250 per week
I arrive at the Oceanside Presbyterian church early, so I walk around to find the bathroom and the spot where the Meals on Wheels truck rendezvous with the route drivers. I'm to ride along with Mr. D today to learn the Oceanside route and begin subbing next month. By the time I find the truck in the large church parking lot, Mr. D has all his food loaded in his red pick-up and is ready to roll. He looks like a computer programmer in his mid-forties, sporting a thick '80s mustache and a salt and peppered, parted, regular guy hairdo. We ride to the first house in awkward silence, with not even the smooth sounds of soft rock to break the tension.
We arrive at a mobile home park and head right to number 123. Mr. D half-knocks on the screen door in the carport on his way in, comfortable with his route of twelve years. Mrs. C is ready, seated at her low kitchen counter end, which is covered in mail, prescriptions, newspaper, and whatever else old people keep on their counters. Mr. D is moving quick. He's got the fridge open and pulls out what looks to be a fat plastic pen and a Diet Pepsi. He hands the pen thing to Mrs. C, and then pulls out a glass and fills it with the Diet Pepsi. "Whoa, your meals are stacking up in here, Mrs. C," Mr. D says when he sees four or five frozen Meals on Wheels meals inside the freezer. Mrs. C seems confused and ignores him while she fiddles around with a prescription box before extracting what looks like a small, clear plastic, syringe head holder. The diabetic label on the food we brought should have clued me in on her condition and what the pen-looking thing and syringe head are for. He asks about her son, wishes her an early Happy Mother's Day, and gives her the standardize Meals on Wheels Mother's Day card. We're out the door, and Mr. D is inside his truck and starting it before I can even get in.
We whip around the corner to another mobile home in the same park. Mr. D makes me help him check the food, then we're into the house without knocking, since the screen door allows the residents to see our presence, and Mr D loudly announces "Meals on Wheels" at every door before he barges in. Once inside, Mr. D is putting the meals on the counter and introducing me to a husband and wife in their eighties. The husband stands near me in his white T-shirt and shorts or underwear, but doesn't reach out to shake my hand. He smiles. He's thin and not only is his skin loose and marked with liver spots, his forehead has a crusty skin barnacle. His wife sits on the couch reading the paper, and since she's wearing shorts, I see her exposed legs, which look like loose skin draped over bones. The mobile home is tidy but has the smell and feel of the grim reaper's impending arrival. He might be coming this week, but at least the couple will go out together.
Once we're back in the truck and speeding up what Mr. D calls "the expressway" but is only Highway 76, I ask him if we should be concerned about Mrs. C's meals stacking up in her freezer. He tells me it's not a problem, because Mrs. C's son is her caretaker and comes by daily. But she looked so alone and sad, I thought.
After a short time on the expressway, we cut through a few streets in coastal Oceanside into a predominately Mexican neighborhood. The streets are lined with weekly yard sales that include clothes spread over dying lawns and tables with toys and bags of pork rinds, or chicharrónes, in clear bags. We pull into a the parking lot of a large, run-down apartment complex, park, and get the food out. We walk into the middle of the complex, where a Snoop Dogg song bumps from a neighbor's apartment. The note says the resident we're delivering to is hard of hearing, but I'm sure that even if she can't hear Snoop Dogg's dirty lyrics, she can feel his beats.
An elderly black woman in a well worn nightgown and hole-riddled head sock cracks open the door. Mr. D asks her if she wants us to bring the food inside, but she either doesn't hear him or doesn't want us inside, so we hand her the food through the small opening she's allowed. She thanks us and says it's good work we're doing, which, of course, makes me feel useful and my time well spent.
On our next delivery, Mr. D pulls into the parking lot of a nice apartment complex and says it's a nightmare to park here. He leaves his truck in a red zone and says, "We'll be out of here in no time," and he means it. We power right into the man's apartment, and Mr. D has the food in front of the man before I can even realize the guy is sitting in a wheelchair, has one leg, and looks like a gray-bearded, pony-tailed, Vietnam Vet, biker dude. Mr. D hastily introduces me while I stare in amazement at the man's pile of candy and snacks on his coffee table, which is clearly his main post-up spot. The man says nothing to me, and Mr. D turns and is out the door before I can really say hello. "I think he recently had a stroke and can't talk," Mr. D says once we're outside the man's door. "Jesus," I say. "Yeah," Mr. D agrees. We're back at Mr. D's truck, which he's again started before I'm even inside, when he tells me, "I've been cussed out at this place before for the parking situation. 'I'm trying to deliver food to your neighbor,' I tell them. But they don't care."
"Old people," I say, like that explains it all.
Mr. D powers on, gunning it up streets and testing his brakes at stop signs. The man is on a mission, and I admire his determination. Our route is short today, since half of the ten customers have posted a "Do Not Deliver" message to their address page. For our final delivery, we pull into a solidly middle-class neighborhood where all the houses are decent sized and the yards are all well maintained, except the house we're delivering to. The walkway is dirty and weedy and there are old, dusty bits of cardboard here and there. An elderly white woman, looking like she's dressed for church in her light-brown pantsuit, answers the door and says, "I thought maybe you got lost," which is the kind of lame thing I'm used to hearing while delivering food to the rich. Her stairs and floors are bare, in the midst of being re-carpeted, but Mr. D has the food on the counter and is out the door before I can ask about the remodel.
On the way back to the church, Mr. D asks me if I'm comfortable with the route. I lie and say yes. The truth is, I'm still a little shaken up from what I saw, and the breakneck speeds at which Mr. D maneuvered the route and the houses has me wondering if I can match his feat. But, quite honestly, the job seems much more important and meaningful than delivering pizza to the rich. I just hope the elderly are understanding if their food isn't so hot.
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