We don't go for that "The customer is always right" crap, either

Our standard delivery time at Pizza Place is 30 to 45 minutes. That's what we tell our customers just about every time. Sometimes, we know it won't take that long, but that's what we're required to say: 30-45 minutes. If we're busy or short-handed, the time might increase: 45 minutes, 50 minutes, an hour. The longest I've ever heard was "an hour and a half, two hours," and that's when we were slammed and short-handed.

The point is that we generally deliver our pizzas pretty quickly, unlike Pizza Conglomerate, which routinely takes an hour or two to get you your order. But they're famous, so they can get away with it.

Our customers are generally pretty pleased with our delivery times. But every once in a while...

It was a Saturday night. Now, you'd think Saturdays would be insanely busy at Pizza Place, but you'd be half-right: on some Saturdays, we've got orders coming out our ears, and on others, we're completely dead. There is no middle ground. But this particular Saturday, we were quite busy, so our estimated delivery time expanded. First, to "40-45 minutes," then to "50-55 minutes."

I found myself on the phone with a young gentleman -- 15, 16 years old -- employed at the go-cart track a block away from us. Now, he's not far away, but there were many orders ahead of him, and we have to deliver them in the order they're received. So I had to tell him, "It's going to be about an hour for delivery, is that okay?"

There was a confused pause. "Um," he began, "don't you have to deliver it in 30 minutes or less? Or it's free?"

Ah, yes. The 30-minutes-or-less policy. It was introduced by Domino's Pizza in, uh, the '80s (I don't feel like looking it up) and abolished because their drivers were having accidents and killing people to get the houses on time. It goes without saying that we don't do that.

"That's not our policy, sir."

There was another confused pause, and then a slight sigh: the tiny spitting of air one makes when one is baffled. And then, solemnly, dead serious: "But isn't that, like, the law?"

The law. The law.

Yes, kid. It's the law. Police officers tail me every time I go out with a map and a stopwatch. I'm looking at fifteen to twenty if I'm late one more time.

What the fuck?

I told the kid that there was not, in fact, legislation regulating pizza delivery times. I managed to stop short of recommending he write his congressman.