Doubles

Doubles are a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, a successful double gives you twice the money in roughly the same amount of time as a single. On the other hand, it is like a series of dominoes where each piece must be carefully aligned in order reach the correct conclusion.

Here's how you get a domino disaster.

While you're at restaurant 1, dispatch calls with the wonderful news that you have a second pick up and your additional destination is only a half mile from the first.

You already know things will be tight since restaurant 2 is on the other side of the territory but if the dropoffs are that close it shouldn't be a problem.

Then restaurant 1 takes 15 minutes longer than normal.

This results in the food at restaurant 2 sitting an additional 15 minutes.

Also dispatch failed to tell you customer 1 wants a six pack of coke. Since you sold a single coke earlier, you're short one. You'll have to stop at a store to buy a coke.

Restaurant 1 finally completes order 1 which now has been on the clock for 35 minutes.

It takes 13 minutes to get to restaurant 2 to pick up the now lukewarm food.

You now have 12 minutes to get from northwest Sandy Springs to southeast Buckhead. Oh, and you have to find a store to get a can of coke.

As you dash into a store, dispatch calls for a status. You explain you're going to run about 5 minutes past an hour. Dispatch promises to let the customer know.

Then you catch every red light in Buckhead. Not hyperbole. Every mother fucking one.

Your first dropoff is a fancy condo complex with 24 hour security. Except the security guard ain't there. SHIT!

Finally, after spending the time finding the customer on the hideous callbox, you enter the complex.

The only thing that goes right is this is a regular customer and you know exactly where he lives. He's also nice and doesn't give you any grief.

Time for the second leg of the double. Although, its on the clock at 58 minutes since its close, there is a chance to get it in under the wire.

But this is an address you don't know. You punch it in to the trusty GPS and your digital guide chirps out that it is 9 minutes away.

It's not a half mile from the first drop off. It's three miles and buried in a neighborhood. A neighborhood with some road closures due to damage from last week's storm.

15 minutes later, you finally drop off at customer 2. He doesn't seem to notice the containers are not piping hot and says it's okay when you mumble a lie about bad traffic making you late.

You peel out before he discovers he's going to need the use of his microwaves and silently thank the driver gods that the tips were pre-paid.

And that my friends is how the dominoes get spilled all over the table.

Big Uns

Two groups of people every driver loves: stoners and people with too much money.

Stoners are so happy to see you, at times they just throw money at you.

People with too much money (not just rich people - there' a difference) order great gobs of food leading to the mandatory minimum tip and then give you money on top of that.

It only takes one of those to make your night.

Adrenaline Crash

There are bad nights. Then, there are crash nights.

You're already tired. Don't really feel like working. And you hit the ground running. Non-stop for six hours - half of it in Friday traffic.

Everything is fucked up. The traffic is fucked up. The dispatcher fucks up. The restaurants fuck up. The customers are fucked up and share their fuckupedness by tipping poorly.

The evil of it all means your first three runs take over an hour each. The cruel calculus of delivery means your making minimum wage - maybe less.

You can't stop to eat. You barely have time to grab a Coke. Only the few minutes in a restaurant allows you to deal with the consequences of that Coke.

The next to the last run (the front of a double) is late but you weren't told so when the customer opens the door, you are the target of the fury. The last run (the back of the double, now late because you had to deal with the screaming customer on the front end) is to the edge of your territory, in a neighborhood you've never seen.

Then it all ends. You return to base. You check out. And you return to your car one last time.

That's when the shakes start.

It's the adrenaline crash.

You see, your body has been feeding on raw fight and flight instincts for hours. Pure adrenaline. It has sustained you through the maelstrom and now it is gone. The body no longer needs that ragged edge focus and wants nothing more than to shut down.

When the shakes finally pass, through force of will, you start your car and carefully make your last drive - home.

Fat Ass Americans

The reason Americans are fat tubs of goo is because they do things like back out of a parking space they just pulled into so they can move their car to another parking space 20 feet closer to a restaurant.

All the time blocking a delivery driver who no doubt in the future will deliver feed bags to their homes when they can no longer fit their morbidly obese asses into their monster SUVs.

The Specter Of The Night

As a double shift ends, the city at night oozes the surreal. Water on the pavement raises mirage-like shimmers which blur the boundaries between the sodium yellow of the streetlights and the green haze of the skycraper lit sky.

It fogs the mind.

Am I on a pickup or a drop off? Should I make a right or barrel on straight? Did I just see a ghost? No, just a pedestrian on a suicidal stroll down a street without sidewalks. Was that thump my car topper slipping the grasp of magnetism to plunge to its destruction?

The driver becomes a laconic robot.

Dispatch. Drive. Park. Pickup. Drive. Park. Drop Off. Dispatch. Drive. Park.

One zephyr of thought sustains.

At least I'm not one of those poor pizza bastards who have to do this shit until 2:00am.

No Need To Wave

If you forcibly thrust the nose of your vehicle in front of mine making me choose between high speed ramming and high speed brake testing - do not wave.

No polite, southern, ritual gesture will slake my thirst for karmic retribution in the form of transmission removal via speed bump as you desperately proceed to your next ALTA match.

Hello Ma'am

Hotels are a roulette spin into the unknown.

99% of the time when that mystery door opens, you will be greeted by the warble of a television, a glance at scattered clothes and a business traveller only thinking of food.

But sometimes, you are greeted by a person in a towel.

Sometimes, it's a middle aged dude who doesn't give a shit that my seeing his paunch jiggle does not make my day.

Then...sometimes...it's 5'10" with skin the color of creamy coffee, raven hair and a frame barely contained by the skimpy hotel towel.

Those make you forget things like the drinks which were also part of the order. That of course requires a return trip. Which isn't really that unpleasant.

Cosmic Tumblers

How do you upset your cosmic tumblers?

Place an order two minutes before close. Give an incomplete address which causes the delivery driver to park a half a mile away. Make the already past shift delivery driver wait in the receptionist office for an additional ten minute.

How do you perform a cosmic re-alignment?

Overtip. Big time.

Smart move.

High Rise

I frequently visit a certain luxury condo tower. It's the type of place where you only access the living areas by first passing through security. The guards range from professional politeness to utter disdain. Considering they probably make less than most delivery drivers, their arrogance is irritatingly amusing.

Today, after passing the gatekeeper, I entered the elevator and was nearly overwhelmed by the odor of ganja.

I snickered at the thought of the rent-a-cops so diligently protecting their charges from dangerous food slingers but unable to prevent rich teenagers from sparking up in the elevators.

And those teenagers have some gank-ass shit.

Atlanta Delivery Driver

I am Atlanta Delivery Driver.

I deliver your food and witness your madness.

Names are changed to protect my job.