Did you call your mom today?

Its time I confronted what happened Friday night.

Most of you know I deliver pizzas for a living. Kato has often spoken about his experiences in the same profession. However, nothing like the night Im about to describe has ever been told.

Act 1: Candy Machine Man.
About half way through a rather slow night I delivered a pizza to a woman in one of the nicer hotels in our area. As Im walking through the hall, pizza in hand, a man says, 'Hey, thats my pizza'. This happens all the time so to verify that hes a liar I ask him what room hes staying in. He says, 'the room that pizzas going to'. Growing irritated at his little game I ask what number. '108' he replies. 108 was not my destination, I was headed for 112. I explain that 108 is not the room that ordered the pizza, wished him a nice day, turned and started walking down the hall.

This was not the end of our encounter for him though. He decided to follow me down the hall shouting things at me. 'Let me get one piece.' 'Ill pay you for it.' 'Cmon man Im hungry.' You get the point. As we pass his room he slows down. I arrive at room 112, which is only 2 rooms away from my new friends room.

He sees me stop and knock on the door and decides to come over. 'Im going to see whos in this room. Maybe my neighbor will give me a piece' Not sure what to do, I stand there silently hoping that this customer stepped out to get some pop, a movie or an assault rifle of some kind. Much to my, and her, dismay she was there. She opened the door and before I could ask 'hows it going tonight', my friend (who is standing right over my shoulder at this time) busted in with, 'Hi neighbor, Im over in 108 and was wondering if I could get a slice of that pizza.' I want you to count to 1, now take the amount of time that it took you to do that and divided it by about 64 and thats about how long the next set of events to elapse. The woman looked at my friend, looked at me frightenedly, grabbed the pizza and slammed the door. Not a word was said.

At this point my friend must have gotten board (there wasnt a chance that he realized that he made an ass out of himself) because he decided to return to his room. Im left alone, standing outside this womans room, not sure if Im going to be given any money. If I am given money, should I even accept it. The woman returns a couple minutes later and as she opens the door peeks her head out and looks around. She sees that Im alone now and hands me the money. I apologize and she closes the door.

Act 2: Booze and Bath towels.
A man staying in the nicest hotel in our delivery area calls to order a pizza. He tells the CSR that hes so drunk that he doesnt care whats on the pizza. I have to deliver to this man.

A quick word about drunk people who order pizza. More often than not, they are a drivers dream customer. The only bad thing about them is that they want to talk to you but on the plus side they are easy to distract so its not hard to end a conversation. The best thing is that they almost always tip. And when they do tip they tip very well. You might have to endure a couple minutes of everyone shuffling around currency and trying to do simple math in their heads but theyll quickly become frustrated with this task and give you all the money in their hand.

So I jump into the Green Fever, pizza in hand and head down the road to a very nice hotel and a drunk man who doesnt care whats on his pizza. I go through the lobby and head down the hall. There are 2 guys using the sitting area for its intended purpose and one of them says, 'hey what room you goin to?' In return I ask, 'what room are you staying in?' '114' he says. 'Thats not me' I reply. I was heading to room 334. Satisfied that this encounter was over, I turned and headed down the hall again.

As Im walking the other guy gets up and runs up next to me and says, 'thats for one of my buddies, Im going to see if theyll give me a piece. You know how we do it.' WHAT THE FUCK. Why do people insist of following me everytime I go to a hotel. If they want pizza why dont they just order their own. 'Man youre really walking fast.' Says my second new friend of the day. 'Im in a hurry' I reply. As I approach the elevator my friend slows down. He then turns and says to the guy sitting in the sitting area, 'hes going upstairs, thats not one of ours.' The elevator door shuts and Im alone again.

The elevator door opens and I walk over to room 334 and knock. A minute later I knock again only slightly louder this time. Still no answer. Odds are this person has fallen asleep or passed out. This means that its time to bring out the "police knock". This involves both fist and foot in a coordinated pounding rhythm. As Im finishing my knock (a knock that in the past has awoken many people in neighboring rooms)a toweled man opens the door. 'Sorry, I was in the shower.' 'Not a problem sir, heres your food and your total is $18.' 'I can write a check, right?' 'Sure can. Just make sure it has your drivers license and phone number on it.'

Writing checks proves to be difficult for sober people so you can imagine how hard it was for this man. A couple minutes later, he comes back to the door. Fortunately for me I was looking at the floor at this time. Its a long walk from the desk in the back of the hotel room to the door and during this journey this gentleman, check in hand, forgot that he was only wearing a towel. At that point he was no longer wearing a towel. Im certain I was looking at the floor because all I could see was the mans shines and towel covered feet and ankles. In the amount of time it took the woman at the last hotel to take her pizza this man, who up until now had displayed no need or desire for speed, bent over and picked his towel up.

The check was made out for $25. $7 tip. I left feeling very dirty.

Act 3: You scared the shit out of the pizza man.
There is an apartment complex about 2 miles away from our store that we deliver to quite often. Its not the nicest complex in town but its certainly not the worst either.

I arrive at the apartment and knock on the door. A woman answers and there were two other women sitting on the couch and at least one other man sitting out of site in the room. I was delivering 4 pizzas and an order of breadsticks. Anyone whos ever delivered pizzas knows that this size order is not easy to get out of a pizza bag in one attempt so I first gave the woman the breadsticks, than I pulled two of the pizzas out of the bag and she put the breadsticks on them and then took them from me. While I was getting the last to pizzas out and telling her the total ($27 and some change) she was attempting to hand the other two pizzas to one of the other people. None of them would get up. 'Get up and grab these.' They sat silently. It should be stated at this point that these pizzas arrived at this apartment less than 5 minutes after they came out of the oven so they were very hot. So hot in fact that this woman started freaking out. 'Get yo ass up and take these pizzas' she screamed at the top of her lungs. 'Look at you stupid bitches sitting there.' 'You dont take these pizzas you aint eatin.' In the end she dropped the pizzas and they were laughing. This blog cant do this woman justice. Ive never been so afraid of some one who wasnt me in my life. Then she turned to me, took the other 2 pizzas and in the calmest voice Ive ever heard asked me how much the pizza was. I told her and she handed me $30. She turned, yelled at the people in the room a little bit and set the pizzas on the ground. I got $2 out for her change and handed it to her. The said thank you and as I started walking away, she grabbed my hand and put the $2 in it. I thanked her and went to my car. As I got into the car I could still hear her yelling, the girls laughing and the guy saying 'You scared the shit out of the pizza guy'.