A 1975 Ford Escort is not for any reason worth 2/3rds of a million bucks.

So somewhere along the line last night I strained a muscle in my back. Long story short, it hurts, like a fuckin’ bitch. It didn’t hurt so much earlier today, but then I was in a car with Zenchick driving and … I don’t quite know how to describe it. Baltimore is very pothole-icious so there we are heading into Hampden then out of Hampden, and there she is, talking on the cell phone, fiddling with a pen or these ridiculously oversized sunglasses she bought to complement her Halloween costume, steering with various appendeges that were not her hands, skidding around corners, running over little children, and going at potholes like she was trying to ram them. Long story short (again) none of her very acrobatic car tricks helped relieve the pain of my aching shoulder. On the bright side, she didn’t get me killed, so hoorah!

I took some aspirin and a long hot shower upon finding my way home through the various backstreets of Baltimore City and County. I’m going to try to nap - (well, tomorrow morning) tonight is Army of Darkness at The Charles Theater, and since I’m working all day Halloween, I should do something celebratory for the holiday.

Off to bed I go.

So last night, during my stellar night, I almost died.

I took a delivery waaaaay up into Harford County. One of the rare occasions when I’d never been to the house before. Bounced down the not-entirely-paved road in the Neon because, well, let’s be honest - it’s a rental and I hate it. This is an awful attitude to have to property that I’m fortunate enough to be able to “borrow”, but, whatever. No CD player? Bullshit. Anyway, so down this not-quite-paved road I go to this decent sized house.

I park by the garage and walk to the front door. The order’s a little over thirty-bucks. Four pizzas and a two-liter soda. Getting to the front door, I realize I’ve got a problem — some yahoo strung a fake spiderweb between the trees framing the landing, so I can’t actually get to the door. No problem, I reach out with the 2-liter and hit the doorbell, violating my “knock” rule. A few seconds later, a kid answers the door (kid! teen) and at the same time, a loud barking started from the direction of the garage.

The biggest. Blackest. Evilist looking dog ever was slowly advancing. And his barks weren’t of the “Who are you?” variety, but of the “Look buddy, I’m about to be getting all medieval on your fat ass with my sharp teeth.”

So the teen takes the food, tells me not to worry about the dog, pays me (very generous tip - he probably artificially inflated my tip average), and calls to the animal, “Shaddup!”

So he’s yelling at the dog as I walk back towards the Neon, and thusly, past this barking devil creature. As I get closer, the dog starts barking, then gets in my path and sniffs the pizza hot back that we use to keep food warm. I take a gamble and pet this big thing on the head. And he pushed his head up and I scratched him a bit as I continued to move towards my car which is when it happened.

My big left foot, clad in a big ungangly not-quite-a-shoe not-quite-a-boot came right down on one of his paws as we both moved about each other. I didn’t stomp his paw, that implies deliberate aforethought. But I certainly stepped on it, hard. And this animal, I swear, throat ripping distance, and I nearly peed myself as his jaw opened and he …

… licked my hand.

I had to look at my hand to make sure I hadn’t been bitten. Seriously, I thought he was going to bite me. Then I almost peed my pants in relief.

I gave him a good scratching behind his ears. He followed me back to my car and propped himself on the door as I turned the vehicle on. I scratched him some more, then he figured I had to go, jumped down from the door frame, and he was gone and so was I.

Best. Dog. Ever.

***

Earlier that night, I took a delivery way south in the delivery area. Get to the house and I’m met by the friendliest golden retriever. She walks halfway to the door with me, then stops. She waits until the home owners open their door, then comes running up barking at me. The wife rolls her eyes. “She’s trying to convince us she’s a guard dog.”

Clever furball! She was quite friendly again on the way back out to the car. I admit it - I gave her some scratchin’.

The conventional wisdom used to be that it sucked to work Friday nights — busiest night of the week so stores stock up on drivers. What that usually translates into, however, is low earning nights — even though the store has more orders to be delivered, it also staffs so many people that generally the average driver earns nada. For awhile, this was the reason I didn’t work Friday nights. It just didn’t make any sense, particularly over the summer where even the franchise (a “summer” store if I ever saw one) suffered slow Friday nights.

(I’ve been accused of not wanting to work nights where I don’t make any money. Um. Yeah. Who wants to work if they’re not going to make money?)

So lately I’ve been working more Friday nights. The franchise on these nights hasn’t been as bad — people are taking off work more often, and so the ratio of drivers to deliveries has improved. Anyway, I had tonight (well, last night) would could be described as “the perfect night.”

I think I only had two doubles (i.e., taking two deliveries or at a time). I don’t know if Steve was trying to screw me on deliveries (a few times I was in the store I noticed A. was getting doubles and triples, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the routing computer), but if he was, boy did he mess up — yeah, I took a bunch of long runs, but with one exception (when an old lady tried to short me three bucks then only tipped a buck when I caught her “mistake”) tips were fuckin’ amazing. I took twelve deliveries and left with eight-four bucks. Taking out the store’s mileage compensation, my average tip was $6, which is good for, say, a Superbowl Sunday where the Ravens win, but for a busy Friday is absolutely mind-blowingly incredible.

See, the other conventional wisdom is that busy (i.e., Fridays) or promotional (two for Tuesday, school nights) days of the week generally suffer from lower tips because that’s when the cheap asses all order.

Long story short, thank you, Steve. You made my fucking weekend. I was half tempted to give you a giant hug and a kiss on the cheek when I left, but, uh, I thought you might take it wrong.

Tommorow (er) tonight, er, no wait, tomorrow is right:Army of Darkness. “Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.” Best. B-Movie. Of all Time.