Tuesday I had lunch with A.F., who was one of my English professors my first time through Towson University. She taught a really excellent Nonfiction Essay course that I took in the fall, and since the previous semester and summer I’d run into something like three or four deer (earning from my friends the title, “Snay: The Deer Slayer”, the title for my first essay was, “Why Deer, As A Species, Are Retarded (and Suicidal).” That may not have been the exact title — I don’t believe I have a copy of it any longer — but that was the general gist of it.

***

So that was my digression. On with the actual post.

I hate being tailgated. I particularly hate being tailgated by motorcyclists. I am very careful to maintain a following distance of three car lengths from other motor vehicles, and I usually try to even stay further behind motorcycles than that. Given their method of travel, even an impact with my tiny little car rear ending them would probably cause for them tremendous physical damage, as well as for me, potential legal consequences and a bothersome conscience.

So I get pissed off when motorcyclists tailgate me. I notice that when I’m being tailgated by a motorcycler, he’s (or she’s) almost always driving a “crotch-rocket.” The folks who ride Harley-Davidsons and other such bikes always seem to have a healthy regard for safe driving.

Anyway, I was being tailgated by a motorcyclist yesterday evening on Jarrettsville Pike. I turned onto Merryman’s Mill and the biker kept going his own way, while some soccer mom started tailgating. Another brief digression: a soccer mom driving a minivan as opposed to a Humvee used as a minivan? A soccer mom I can respect!

It’s a good thing the motorcyclist wasn’t tailgating me, because once I was about halfway between Kilarney and Summer Hill, he would’ve learned a hard lesson about tailgating: you’re not going to see what’s about to pop out from under that Celica you’re practicaly touching with your front wheel.

There was a deer across the road. I couldn’t do anything about it. If I slammed on my brakes, Soccer Mom would probably have hit me. If I swerved into the other lane, I woulda been creamed by the oncoming traffic. I was fearful I didn’t have enough clearance to get over the damn thing — I drive, as I mentioned, a tiny car — but what choice did I have?

Did I mention the deer was already dead? Yes. And spread quite nicely — and largely intact from what I could see — across the lane I was in. I was expecting to cringe a bit when my tires ran over the various sprawled limbs, but I was much relieved when I noticed neither that nor wound up catching the carcass under my car and dragging it along with me (which would’ve been a fucking nightmare).

I was really glad the crotch-rocket wasn’t still tailgating me, because I don’t know how he could’ve hit the deer and not crashed. Then I would’ve been late on my delivery. Inconsiderate bastard.

So I get to this lady’s house, and when she opens the door, she spotted a frog on the corner of her porch. “It’s back!” she said, surprised, explaining to me that the frog had the habit of migrating to the porch whenever a storm was on the horizon. This was at 5:30, and as the day progressed, minus a small splattering of rain drops across my windshield shortly after this conversation, there was not a rainstorm to be spotted.

Until I walked out of the grocery store, after getting out of work, and found that the humidity had doubled in the ten minutes I’d been inside. Dear goodness, nevermind the steady splatter of raindrops across my shoulders and head, the heat …

Lately I’ve been running the a/c, both in my apartment and in my car. I can’t remember any other summer when I’ve had to run either a/c quite this much. I hate running the a/c. I feel guilty about doing it, primarily from a financial concern (as opposed to an environmental one, sorry Al).

Zap and I were talking at work today about how all we wanted was a nice long delivery to the farthest ends of our area so that we could escape the oppressing heat of the Indy and enjoy the wonderful, beautiful invention that is the air conditioned automobile. As it turns out, I won out, with a delivery to Falls Road — I took the scenic route, to and from, and I even, in a moment of winter-lust and weakness, cranked the a/c from “low” to “freeze, bitch!”

What a wonderful drive, escaping the heat and the humidity, up to the moment I stepped out of my car and my eyeglasses fogged right over.

Have I mentioned autumn is my favorite season?

(Well, it is).

This blog was apparently mentioned in the WaPo publication The Express, which is put out for Metro riders (I say “apparently” because I won’t believe it until I see it, thanks for the Head’s Up, Chris!). Two things: Seriously? This shouldn’t boost my ego as much as it has, but yes, it did! Second: their online site doesn’t seem to be complete. Slight ego deflation.

In Conclusion: I am the shit.

(Or, “I am a shit.”)

Whichever you prefer.

(Update: Michael Grass and blogger TC the Terrible for pointing out that, yes dumbass, there is a PDF file of the actual paper clearly marked at the top of The Express‘ website.)

It’s coming.

- The creators were such big fans of the book that is why they decided to do this project.
- From viewing it, the DVD was kind of disappointing. It was made for young kids. The animation reminded of that cheesy Liberty Kid’s cartoon. The segments between the choices were way too long where it might as well been a normal cartoon. And if you get a bad ending you don’t get to see the kids get eaten of anything bad. BOO!
- if you have suggestion of books you want to see made into the films send an email to them. They want to make these movies for the fans.
- Voices featured are William H. Macy, Frankie Muniz, and Mark Hamill.
- There are 11 possible endings with 4 possible storylines.
- Each DVD comes with fun facts about the country the story takes place in a booklet. If kids read the booklet it helps you make good decisions when you watch the DVD.
- Only recommended for people with young children.

I used to love those books when I was a kid. I think it’s a cool concept for a movie, and I also think it’d be neat if they geared some towards a more adult audience. I realize they couldn’t do a theatrical release (how could the audience choose?), but more grown-up themed DVDs would, I think, be pretty neat.

For the record, my favorite CYOA was The Curse of Batterslea Hall.

***

Also: Monopoly with debit cards? What’s next, Risk with nuclear missiles? Wait — that’d be awesome!

So I’m slowly but surely getting the hang of Civilization 3.

I just fought my first war — it’s 1090 AD in game — against the Americans (I’m playing as the Brits). They torched two of my cities, and I occupied Detroit. I was about to make a push on Baltimore when Lincoln (who looks like a hippie in his purple robes and no top hat) called me up and asked for a peace. I have some ornery Koreans on my southern border, and some pissed off Summarians to my east, and some Arabs to my west who were a little tired of sending my troops across their land to fight Lincoln.

My biggest problem was budgetary. I think my mistake, made early in the game, was allowing city governors the power to manage their own production. I’m playing on “chieftan” (the easiest), while also having set all my random opponents to the least aggressive settings. My governors, apparently, are paranoid wanna-be-warlords, possibly why I was spending a lot of money maintaining my large military forces — click on a city and, oh, look, warriors, spearmen, archers, oh my! Thank goodness for the disbanding feature which saved my budget right before I went completely into the red.

I wish workers would automatically build roads. Just select from what city to which city and let them work. I keep forgetting about them, and I’ve noticed with the automated feature they seem to run around masturbating, instead of doing anything valuable. I’m also not so thrilled with the “movement” features — probably my noviceness speaking, but all too often all I want to do is move a single settler, yet he gets a full military escort, umpteenth troops, out with him.

The biggest problem I have is with city populations — out of probably twenty cities or so, and a good fifth of ‘em weren’t growing at all. Very frustrating, and I really wasn’t sure how to deal with it. I abandoned one, but then the Arabs got a chunk of my former territory. Grr. I fought a war with them, too, and I got my ass royally kicked. My fault. I declared war on them. Figured I’d pick up a few cities with the frightening names (for obvious reasons if you watch CNN) Basara, Mosul, and Baghdad. Then, as I mentioned, I got my infantrys’ collective asses royally kicked by the Arabs, who invaded my territory and started wholesale conquering. So I did the only thing I could — I quit the game without saving, and reopened it from prior to that poorly thought war because, really, when you have such a restart option, why not take advantage of it…?

I’m working on developing muskets (I think). I want a rematch with the Americans.

As election time approaches, I’ve been noticing campaign signs starting to creep onto lawns and bumpers. One person campaigning in Harford County has the unfortunate last name of “Stifler”, and all I can think about when seeing her campaign signs is Paul Finch saying, “Stifler’s Mom, are you trying to seduce me?”

And y’know, Donna Stifler and Jennifer Coolidge? Don’t look all that dissimilar …

I would never have guessed.

(This is blogworthy, but I don’t think it is CNN worthy. Seriously, isn’t there a war going on somewhere?)

In the last weeks of December, during the last major German offensive of World War II, a group of American soldiers was overwhelmed by Germany’s shocktroops near Malmedy, Belgium, and surrendered. Instead of being treated as prisoners of war, the captured Americans were gathered into a group and mowed down by machine gun fire.

One of my recent Netflix selections was the 2004 WWII film “Saints & Soldiers”, which follows a group of Americans who manage to escape the massacre, but aren’t out of trouble — they’ve only got one rifle and they’re behind enemy lines during the Battle of the Bulge. (Technically, it’s the Second Battle of the Bulge, the first was during WWI where the Germans punched through British and French defenders and were routed by just-arrived US Marines in the Battle of Belleau Wood).

Technically and visually, the film is beautiful. It looks very much like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers — herky-jerky camera moves, fountains of dirt raining down helter-skelterish, puffs to indicate bullet hits.

My problems with the film come to two points — the first is the importance of documents carried by a downed RAF pilot who links up with the Americans. I wasn’t sure if the highly-important information he carried was that “this is a major German offensive!” or if it was something else. If it was something else, it was never revealed, and if it was the fact that the Allies were facing a major offensive, they already knew it (by the end of the day December 16th, the first day of the offensive, Eisenhower had already ordered major redeployments of troops). So that was one aspect of the film that bothered me. Of course, the characters didn’t know that their commanders knew about the offensive, but it wasn’t like the film was very clear if that was what the British pilot’s secret information was.

My biggest problem with the film was something that I haven’t even been able to convince myself I’ve just been making mountains out of molehills about. It’s the not-trying-to-be-overt religious theme running through the piece, which by trying not-to-be-overt, made me feel like I was being clubbed over the noggin’ with a shovel. This possibly-imagined-maybe-not-Christian-propaganda feeling wasn’t eased by checking out the film’s official website, listing awards by film festivals I’ve never heard of — Heartland Festival? Big Bear Lake?

Even without these two problems I had in watching it, the movie isn’t very exciting from a story point of view. The audience — in this case, me — never feels emotionally involved with the characters, and the only character with an actual story “arc” — the medic — feels forced.

**

I also Netflixed the HBO film “Warm Springs”, which stars Kenneth Branaugh as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Cynthia Nixon as Eleanor, who following the sudden onset of polio and infantile paralysis in his late thirties, faces the end of his political career. Retreating to a George spa — the same one he would late die at — the film documents his battle both against the disease which has left him a cripple, and his battle to return to national signifigance. I think I was expecting a “The Gathering Storm” for FDR, and this film isn’t that at all, it’s well done as most HBO productions are, but it isn’t particular gripping or exciting. Actually, I think “okay” sums it up best. Deserves the notation, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there”, substituting “movie” for “place”, “watch” for “visit” and “ever see it again” for “live there.”

**

Since I’m clearly in the need for good entertainment after suffering through those, I watched Episode #18 , “Hard Rock“, of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Brisco tags along while Bowler rushes to the aid of his former paramour, now a cafe owner who refuses to pay protection to the notorious Roy Hondo. The episode also introduced Gary Hudson as Sheriff Aaron Viva, who can best be described as an Elvis Impersonator (in 1893? Clearly, Viva is ahead of his time!); and the character Whip Morgan as a paint-splattered gunfighter. I also learned that Randy Edelman’s theme for the series has been reincarnated and is used by NBC Sport Productions during the Olympics and World Series. Neat!

This is the story of the first time I ever kissed a girl.

Well, rather, it’s the story of the first time a girl kissed me. Apparently, back then, I wasn’t too into the whole “kissing” thing, possibly because I was at the tender young age where the word “cooties” was not only unknown to me, but also completely unpronouncable by me.

I was one.

She was older. Much older. She was three. This, no doubt, where my fascination with older women comes from.

I saw Kristin for the first time in probably ten years at my dad’s birthday celebration last week. I knew she’d be there, and I was nervous about that — I always have this fear that I won’t measure up to the expectations people I knew waaay back when would have had of me. I overcame that neurosis pretty quickly as the seventh inning drew to a close and we had a chance to sit next to each other and catch up.

My mom was sitting down in the row in front of us. Her mom was seated next to her. As moms are wont to do, they inquired if either of remembered our first kiss, then proceeded to tell us the story. Important to note, here, that they were both friends long before either of us children were but glimmers in their eyes, and also important for it to be known that Kristin and I shared, I’m certain, the same horrified expression as our mothers related this story to us.

One day, years and years ago (I was one-ish, so we’re talking 1979 here) we went down to the Smithsonian. Kristin decided she wanted to kiss me. As I mentioned above, I wasn’t having anything to do with it. Again, I couldn’t really vocalize any words, and I doubt I was having many coherent thoughts, but were I only a few more years older, I probably would’ve complained, “Girls are yucky!” Kristin, not willing to give up, grabbed my head with her hands, and twisted my head around until she was able to plant a kiss on me.

Although our mothers refused to give this detail, I’m reasonably certain no tongue was involved.

(PS – I wrote this post while trying to get through the WWII movie Saints & Soldiers. That’s a boring ass WWII movie. I’d rather die painfully than ever watch it again).

The Western Australian Government says an incident in which young workers at a fast food store were forced to work for free is an example of what workers will see more of under new federal industrial relations legislation.

Dominos in Myaree placed a poster in its store informing employees they would have to work an extra five minutes unpaid for every minute they were late to work.

The same would apply if any part of an employee’s uniform was missing.

Although (comments to the contrary in this post aside) I don’t actually believe Greg is a fascist — well, sometimes — I can’t help but feel that were he allowed to do what’s described in this article, he’d jump on it in a heartbeat! Particularly the uniform thing. He’s constantly asking me, “Snay, where’s your nametag?” Answers range from: in my pocket, under the car-seat, up your butt, up your butt and around the corner, et al.

(Thanks for the heads-up, Jain!)

Saturday night I had a conversation with American Geisha. Obstensively about whether or not this BiB post was a rehash of another — it isn’t! — I eventually dragged out of her the revelation that she didn’t feel the same way about my blog as she did when first across it she stumbled. “You have to get out more,” she said, complaing about how I post about every little incident that happens at work. (At one point, earlier in the day, I’d told her I was cleaning my apartment. I was. Well, the kitchen anyway. I even bleached the floor. She said one of the — oddly — nicest things to me: “Dude, I’d rather you lived in a pig-sty and got out more!” How sweet!)

I had a falling out with a friend earlier this summer — and I’m paranoid that those friends we have in common might be avoiding me as a result, but I’m too afraid to confront some of them directly (because I’m afraid I really am being paranoid). As a result, I’ve been turning to my blog much more than I have in the past, seeking in it some sort of creepy cyber validation. I will often get home from work at eleven thirty at night and type posts until two in the morning, then “time delay” them throughout the course of the next day. I look to sitemeter every night with this undefinable craving for attention, that can best be described either as “needy” or just plain “pathetic.”

I’ve been blogging lately simply for the sake of blogging. I e-mailed someone last week and actually bragged about how many posts I had on time-delayed posting. To sum up someone who once said something very profound without realizing it, “Double-you-tee-eff?”

I think many of more recent posts have been missing that same “heart” I complained about being absent from Pirates of the Caribbean II. As I took deliveries, I thought about what she said and analyzed some of my feelings. Generally I blog about stupid stuff — stupid customers, stupider coworkers, toys, DVDs, asshole drivers. (I don’t generally do a lot of soul searching, so enjoy it while I’m being all honest and shit). I’m not going to stop blogging about any of the things that interest me, or piss me off but I’m not going to come home at night and force myself to crank out half a dozen posts. I’m going to stop taking this blog so fucking seriously.

I need to get out more, and experience life. Geisha laughs at me when I told her I needed to check my calendar. The message in her laughter was clear: “You’re a pizza guy! How busy can you be?” Truthfully? Very. Yes, my social calendar is very clear, but between the Indy and the Franchise, my only day off is Tuesday (and then not always!), and the only days I’m off before eight o’clock are Fridays (if I’m only scheduled rush), alternating Saturdays, and Sundays. I have very little free time to actually go and do stuff in, and this sucks, because …

Among my “to do” things are to reconnect with childhood friends Russ & Kryss (both of whom live in Silver Spring, and don’t know the other, and I’d like to spend a full day with each, but would settle for a half a day), and possible day-trips to DC & Harper’s Ferry. Here’s where work has thrown another complication my way: I’d proposed August 1st as a good day for the DC trip, and was still waiting to hear back from my friend, when I learned that the Franchise has me scheduled to close that Tuesday evening, meaning the DC trip would have to be cut short (assuming, after all, that’d we go that day). You’d be pissed, right? Then I go in yesterday and I’m off the schedule for the day again (Yay? Maybe if I hadn’t torpedoed my plans already…). I get so fucking frustrated with that place sometimes.

I’m hot under the collar, lately, and desiring an excuse to express it. The last couple of days I was at the Indy I was almost hoping Gary would get in my face about it so I would have an excuse to explode on someone and get in a verbal shouting match. Zap and I came close to a fight the other day over something stupid. I already blogged about me and OMF getting into it. August 21st can not get here soon enough. I need to unwind, and thankfully tonight, I will — just a small get-together with some friends in Towson at a bar. Yes, just what I need, beers. Except, oh, here’s the best part: I’m the designated driver. So I’ll be having, at the most, one beer.

Which, truthfully, I’m totally okay with. When I’m in a good mood, beer makes me a happy drunk. Happy drunk me is full of happy drunk (albeit rib cracking) hugs. But lately, I’ve been in such a foul mood, I think I’d be more a belligerent and nasty drunk. So I’m not going tonight for the alcohol, but the company, and it’ll do me a world of good. Doesn’t hurt that this place has — or at least, had — some killer fucking crab dip. Course, this’ll be my first time there in years, so hopefully the crab dip recipe didn’t go down the shitter.

With that limited availability, and my much anticipated four-day three-night vacation to West Virginia (guess what I’m picking up this afternoon? The key!), my summer has effectively drawn to a close, to be immediately proceeded by my fall semester schedule: twelve credits, and working at least forty hours a week atop that until finals are over. My buddy Chris is taking one of the same classes I am (the awesome Folklore), except he’s got it 11-12:15, while I’m 9:30 – 10:45. We’re going to meet up at Bateman’s after our night classes on Tuesdays for study-sessions (we’ve got the same professor, so we figure our classes will be mostly the same, and, let’s be honest here, we’re not going to be studying at Bateman’s … we’re going to be drinking!)

So. I’m going to start making definitive plans for the remainder of my summer’s free time. Oh, yes, did I mention I also have a birthday coming up in August, as does my sister? Good thing Geisha decided to cancel our improptu Dylan plans, or I’d have to rob a bank so I could do everything I want to without working! Lots of scheduling fun to do, and I’m going to start calling and sending e-mails.

(Side note: Novaspace did this really cool cover of Midnight Oil’s Beds are Burning. It’s a little bit rock & roll … and a little bit not. Check it out).

So here’s the deal. Greg threatened to fire me if I don’t stop blogging about my lazy, stupid, insipid, flatulent, asshole, retarded, impotent, incompotent, illiterate, asstastic co-workers. He toned down the rhetoric — “you’re like a cancer that needs to be excised!” — when I think he realized he couldn’t really afford to follow through on them — he’s got four drivers, and minus me? ain’t no way they’re getting that schedule covered, particularly with some of those drivers, and it isn’t like delivery jobs are hard to come by — but I don’t need to be getting in pissing matches with the Bossman everytime we work together, and the money’s pretty good here so we struck a sort of devil’s agreement.

It didn’t hurt — our coming to an agreement, that is — that after our initial shouting matches (I think I may, at one point, have called him a “fascist un-American interested only in the destruction of the Constitution and the First Ammendment!”) he agreed that the problem wasn’t that I was writing a blog and occasionally posting negatively about coworkers, but that some of the coworkers in question were going around to new employees telling them I was writing mean things about ‘em.

I’m a little befuddled about the timing. I’ve been blogging for a month less than I’ve been working there (two years there next month, two years blogging in September). I haven’t even been writing anything particularly inflamatory about any key-employees, at least, not since I was writing stuff about the GM & his girlfriend a year ago or so. It seems like its the loudmouths making themselves heard (as loudmouths are wont to do).

So here’s our agreement: I will stop publishing posts about my coworkers. Note that key word: “publishing.” I’ll still be writing them, and saving them to be posted either when I’ve left the Franchise’s employ, or when this blog has a log-in feature with exclusive content (like Standing Cheese‘s “Behind the Cheese”). Congratulations, guys — at least before you knew what I was writing about you! :O

(The reaction to my blogging at the Indy? “Jeff, none of us care about your stupid blog, or what you write about. Besides, you always seem to capture my assholenish perfectly.”)

Someone’s itching for a fight.

“We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will…authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president’s acts declared unconstitutional,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Specter’s announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action.

Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds.

“That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement,” said ABA president Michael Greco. The practice, he added “is harming the separation of powers.”

Bush has challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers compiled by Specter’s committee. The ABA estimated Bush has issued signing statements on more than 800 statutes, more than all other presidents combined.

Signing statements have been used by presidents, typically for such purposes as instructing agencies how to execute new laws.

But many of Bush’s signing statements serve notice that he believes parts of bills he is signing are unconstitutional or might violate national security.

My first thought was that Specter was preparing to distance himself from the President with midterm elections coming up this November, but a quick Google search reveals that the Pennsylvannian Republican was elected in the last election cycle, and won’t be standing for another until 2010. That’s actually reassuring. Instead of being a way for a Republican to distance himself from an unpopular leader of his same party — election politics — this is, I’m sure, motivated by Specter’s honest disgust at the President.

So I mailed in a payment to Dell, which was due July 7th. Forgetting, because I’m an absent minded douche, that there was a Federal holiday, I neglected to get the bill into the mail until the fifth.

I had a not unreasonable expectation that the check would not be recieved until after the 7th, and I’d get hit with a service charge. Fuck that. So I logged onto Dell.com and set up an online payment for the minimum due amount. Better safe than sorry, and all that jazz.

Got my bill due August. Well, I played, gambled, and won. The online payment processed on the 7th, as did the payment I’d mailed only two days earlier.

I’d also been assessed a $13 “Convenience Fee” for using Dell’s online payment option.

MOTHERFUCKER.

I’m a little steamed at this. Online payment is easy to set up, easy to use, and, yes, very convenient, presuming you remembered to bookmark the log-in sites and don’t have to click “Forgot Your Password?” everytime you want to make a payment, but the real convenience isn’t to the consumer, but to the company, who can spend that fewer dollars on labor for someone to manually recieve the mail, open the envelope, and stamp the check. It seems to me that, by using online payment, I’m the one doing Dell the favor, not vice-fucking-versa.

I have a Best Buy credit card. I don’t use it often, but when I do I will frequently log into their “account center” and quickly dash off a payment. They’ve never charged me a “convenience fee”, probably because they don’t want to waste the labor on customer service phone reps promising “convenience fee” refunds (which, although I haven’t yet spoken to anyone at Dell about this bullshit, will be!).

The nametags at the Franchise are produced by some corporate sweat-shop, emblazoned with the company logo, and have our names label-printed on, usually at some cockamaney angle. (Please, feel free to discuss the merits of how I’ve chosen to spell “cockamaney” in the comments). In addition to all of this, they also include, written in small (practically illegible, really) type, “Drivers Do Not Leave the Store With More Than $20.00.”

The theory behind this policy — because in this case, while the name on my tag might in fact read “Han Solo”, the money policy is in fact as described on the tags — is, I believe, a very sound policy, which boils down to this: if a thief wants to go out and rob delivery guys, he’s going to rob those most likely to be carrying a wad of cash around on them. If Corporate and its Franchisees are successful in limiting the cash their drivers carry, then thieves will target employees of delivery businesses with laxer security.

(Here’s an example: back when I lived in Towson, I ordered Chinese — General Tso’s, of course — from Bruce Lee’s in Timonium. Dude shows I up, I pay, and he’s flipping through a wad of hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens and fives to get to his singles. I was counting as he was flipping, and he had at least a grand on him. If I was going to rob a delivery guy, do you think I’d rob some corporate lackey carrying $20 in change and whatever he got from the last delivery, or the Chinese dude with a grand? Duh!)

There is a lady who lives in the Franchise’s area who we deliver too infrequently. She has apparently never been informed of the company’s policy on change, and a large part of that is because we’ve a.) never told her and b.) are much to lax on this, and I’m as much to blame as any of the other drivers.

Friday night she paid with a crisp, clean $100 bill for a $27 order. She turned her back to dig out the correct coin change, and I emptied my pockets frantic because I’d made a drop back at the store — in technical terms, a “drop” is when you put money into your safe-box — and I was worried I didn’t have enough change for her. As it turns out, including a twenty and a ten I’d had in my wallet, I had $69.

She wanted $70 back.

And she was pissed.

As I said, she orders rarely, and I’ve delivered to her on several occasions. She’s always been pleasant and nice and a great tipper. When I told her I was low on change, she became quite irritated — I tried explaining the policy to her, and it really was like no one had ever explained this to her ever (which I guess no one had). I felt badly for a couple of reasons:

One — this is the first time she’s ever had trouble paying with large bills. Not her fault. Usually it’s either I or Chewbacca delivering to her, and we both know she likes to pay with large bills and make sure we’ve got a little “extra” on us to help cover the difference.

Two — her attitude towards me when I tried to explain the company’s policy made me feel bad, not to mention her snort when I handed her close to thirty bucks in singles (hey, it’s cash ain’t it?) It isn’t my policy, I’m just the fucking driver (albeit, I seem to be in your case, anyway, an enabler). If you’re that upset about it, write the CEO an angry letter. I guarantee you he’ll write back a very polite “Thanks, but go fuck yourself” in such polite language you’ll want to suck his toes.

I didn’t feel bad about having to go back out to my car to get an extra dollar to make up for my shortage. Thank goodness for vast pools of spilled change under my driver’s seat — that’s a buck in good dirty quarters.

When I got back to the store, I pulled up her order form and inserted a new comment under the driver notes: “Expect to be paid in large denomination, bring change.” Except there’s a letter limit, so it was probably closer to: “EXPCT LG $, BRNG CHNG.”