An existential quandry

The kid was about six, I'd say. As I approached the house, he dropped the ball he'd been playing with and scampered over to me. This isn't surprising -- kids always race up to me. I am carrying pizza, after all.

"Are you the pizza man?" he said.

"Yes," I told him.

He looked up at me with his huge, brown eyes and said, in a voice clear and innocent, "Why?"

I still don't have an answer.

Read the friggin' sign!

I took a delivery out into the sticks yesterday. According to my odometer, it was six miles away from Pizza Place -- .2 miles of that trip consisting of their driveway.

As I walked back to my car, their neighbors rushed over to me.

"Do you guys deliver out here?"

Good lord. I'm standing here, aren't I? Then:

"What pizza place are you from?"

I looked back at my car, adorned as it was with the big white Pizza Place sign. I thought about the Pizza Place logo on my shirt. And hat.

Neighbor #2, thankfully, stepped in to answer for me.

"He's from Pizza Conglomerate!"

*facepalm*

I don't think you quite grasp the concept

A guy wandered into Pizza Place the other night. He had lots of questions -- mostly, they were variations on the same question: "Do you deliver to my area?"

"Do you deliver here in Dickinson?"
"Yes."
"Um, on Hughes Road?"
"Yes."
"Do you deliver to the RV park there?"
"Yes."
"It's right over by the feeder road."
"Yes."
"You go over the overpass there, and--"
"Yes."

He then asked for a to-go menu, which we were happy to provide. He took it, looked it over for a moment, then left. End of story? Hardly.

About ten minutes later, the phone rings. Another of the drivers answers it, but I notice him writing the address down -- it's that guy.

This, to me, is idiotic. You were already here -- why didn't you just order the pizza then? It would have taken ten minutes instead of the thirty or forty it will take now, and you wouldn't have to pay the delivery charge. What a moron! I then go about my business.

And in the course of putting away some dishes, I glance out the window and see the guy is still in the parking lot.

He finished his order, and then drove home to wait for it.

There's only one way that could've been dumber.

I must regretfully decline your invitation

The drivers are not allowed to enter our customers' houses. There's never a reason to, but the rule is there. Can't have a driver walk into somebody house and get jumped by fifteen guys.

But some people seem to desperately want us to come in. And it's never very inviting.

Nine o' clock at night, no lights on outside, no lights on inside, a voice deeper than the grave says, "You can come innnnnn...."

I decline. And of course, they get angry. Because that's what customers do.

"We're not gonna bite or nothin'! Damn!"

I'll have to take your word for it.

Just leave it there, we'll get it in a few weeks

A man calls us and places a large order, which he wants delivered. He gives an address in one of the developing neighborhoods on the edges of town. When the order is ready, I jump in my car and head out.

When I arrive at his address, I find that no one is home. Because the house isn't finished yet. The driveway is a hole in the ground, the place has no walls, and I can see the street behind it through the house's empty frame.

I double-check to make sure I'm at the right address, which I am. I look around: none of the other houses on this block are finished, either. Hmm.

I return to the Pizza Place, and my manager gives the guy a call.

"Oh!" he says. "That's the house we're moving to in a few weeks."

My manager: "You gave us the address of a house you don't even live in yet?"

"Yeah," he says, chuckling. "Guess I'm an idiot."

You don't say.