(PREFACE: I wrote this post last December and then apparently saved it as a ‘DRAFT’. Anyway, I’d meant to post it so here it is.)

There’s this guy I’ve delivered to a bunch of time at the Franchise, and I’m pretty sure he’s stealing our food. More accurate to say: I’m pretty sure he’s stealing his company’s money to buy our food with.

Most of the time he orders, he pays with a corporate check belonging to some construction firm waaaay out in Western Maryland (well, like, Westminster). In the “memo” field is the handwritten note, “food for work crew.”

Except, it isn’t “food for work crew.” It’s “food for wife & kid.”

Now, for all I know, the guy owns the company. On the other hand, for all I know, he doesn’t own the company. The last time I had experience with someone paying for delivery food with corporate checks he wasn’t authorized to use, he wasn’t even bothering to tip the drivers (fuxxor!).

This guy, stealing or not, at least is making sure we’ve got a tip, which leads me to a conclusion I know for a fact: his kid is dumb as shit.

I take a delivery out to him Wednesday night. It’s $20 and change. Kid hands me a check and some singles. “That’s the check for the food, and four bucks for you.” I take it, get in my car, back onto the road, get back to the store, look down at what he handed me — the check was made out to cover both the order total and the four tip. Plus he gave me a four dollar cash tip.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened — dad wrote out the check, told the kid* there was a four dollar tip, the kid misunderstood and thought his dad wanted him to pick up the tip, so took four bucks out of his wallet and I wind up with a double tip.

Hey, I’m no fool, but someone needs to work on their communication skills.

*When I say “kid”, I should clarify he’s old enough to have a driver’s license.

So after work (very very very very very slow) I went to the Gucci Giant to make an ATM deposit and to buy a Mach-3 razor for all of those Mach-3 cartridges I bought the other night. So I get the razor (which comes with three cartridges off the bat, so now I’ve got eleven), a bag of cat food, and go to check out in the automated line.

Scan the items, select payment, swipe my debit card, and then wait in wonder as the display reads “processing card.” I’ve checked out through the auto-teller machines very often, and I’ve never seen this happen before. It just says “processing” and doesn’t seem to make any progress. I panic — is my checking account overdrawn? Maybe I badly underestimated the amount of my outstanding checks and they’re all posted already.

I must’ve been standing there, intently, for some time, because one of the front managers came over and pointed out that I need to select my “method” of payment. I felt like an ass — how many times have I used these damn machines? Enough to know to select “method of payment.”

**

Getting home, I opened the razor and went to put it in the medicine cabinet until I can’t use my schick anymore. I slid open the left-hand side of shelves and noticed, on the upper shelf — to my complete and total annoyance — my old razor, alone and until now long forgotten (Giant mailed me the Schick Quattro as a promotion).

My old Mach-3 razor.

Son. of. a. fucking. bitch.

From now on, I’m buying disposable razors.