Stormy Wednesday

The night started off calm enough, the weather was actually very nice. Today was the first day I didn't wear a coat to go to my day job.

On my 2nd delivery, I got to the house and nobody answered the door. I knocked several times and then got out my cell phone and called, but got no answer. I had been there 3 or 4 minutes and was about to give up when a car pulled in the driveway. They had gone to Subway to get cookies! The guy was very apologetic and tipped me $3 on a $16 order.

My first few deliveries were while the weather was still sunny and calm. Then a storm blew in, it was very dark to the north and still light to the south.

There was a tornado reported in our county. Sometimes stormy weather leads to increased deliveries but tonight our business just stopped flat. I don't think I took a delivery between 8 pm and 10 pm.

My next to last delivery was a $13.58 delivery (one large pizza) to a far-away address. By this time the worst of the storm had blown through but it was still raining pretty hard. "Man am I glad you have a porch" I said as the customer answered the door. He gave me a $20 and said to keep the change! Tips like these are appreciated all of the time but especially in bad weather.

I ended up with just 6 deliveries in 5 hours of work, but took home a decent $20 in tips. Total miles tonight was 26.

I have to tell one story from Monday night that I almost forgot.

I had a delivery to 502 Carol. This is less than a mile from our pizzeria and I have a good friend that lives in the 400 block of Carol so I thought I knew right where it was. I turned left but the first address was 516 Carol. So I went back across the intersection and the first house on that side was 486 Carol.

Remember the football movie The Program? Where the star player was lying in the middle of the highway at night for the rush of feeling the cars go past? It got some bad publicity because some foolish kids imitated this act.

Well that's where I thought these people must live.

I tried to call the phone number on the ticket but it rang and rang. I took the order back to the store. Eventually the customer called back and, of course, the address was off in one of the digits. But manager Ward took both calls and insisted it was their fault for not speaking clearly.

The order had to be remade and redelivered. By someone else. No tip for me on that run, but I did get reimbursed $1 (our current per-run rate) for the extra run.

There are currently 19 entries in my basketball contest. This includes me, my wife, my son, my stepson, and 2 nephews. There's still time to enter (but not much).

Oh and if you win, you can pick where you want the pizza gift-card from. As long as it's a place I can buy a gift card from, that is.