As soon as the guy said, “And the bottom line is, if it isn’t, it’s coming out of your tip,” I figured I wasn’t getting much of a tip.

Which is a wonderful way to make sure the pizza guy doesn’t stalk off with your food which, to be honest, was my first reaction.

The problem originated with a coupon - buy a large at regular price, get a medium for a couple bucks. Turns out whoever the customer had spoken to on the phone didn’t recognize the coupon, so marked him down for full price. I don’t quite know which of my coworkers took the order, but I’m not surprised at the situation — Gary’s been printing new coupons every time he has to re-up on his menus, so there are a whole ton floating around.

(Here’s a secret: most pizza-shop coupons aren’t ever redeemed).

And when the guy not-so-indiscreetly threatened my tip, I was in the process of resolving the problem. This involved calling the store to find the regular price for the large speciality pie he’d gotten (I’d love to be able to say I know this stuff by heart, but Euripedes has started pushing that information out of my head), then added the price of the coupon and the mileage charge, and the new total was $19 (down from $25).

And I got a six-buck tip atop it - hurrah!

I usually work Saturday day-shift at the Indy shop. Lately, they’ve been slow. As in: dead slow. As in, three weeks ago, I came in at eleven, opened a book, and got 200 pages into it before Robin showed up three hours early and asked if he could finish my driving shift. I found out the next Monday that the first delivery of the day didn’t even come in until after five.

There’s a generally understood theory in pizza shops, and I imagine it applies to any job where manpower is a concern. When you’re overstaffed, you’ll be dead. When you’re understaffed, you’ll get your ass kicked.

Gary’s a big believer in this theory, so today the schedule was a bit different. Usually there are two insiders and two drivers Saturday day-time. The “swing” insider and the “swing” driver both leave about 2ish. Gary cut the “swing” insider altogether, and asked that I come in at 12 as opposed to 11. As I mentioned earlier, the hope was to trick the Deity of Busy-ness to think that we were understaffed, and thus, drum up a little extra cash all around.

It worked.

Well, sort of … we weren’t actually that busy in terms of a line of people out the door, but we had a large order from a credit card company located in the Industrial Park. It was something like twenty pizzas, fifteen feet of subs, and over 100 sodas spread out over four deliveries. Plus, there were several folks who individually ordered food. Zap and I split the CCC’s order and at the end of the day I left with a solid $40 in my pocket, a nice change of pace from the average Saturday where I leave with a big fat zero tip.

***

One of Gary’s buddies either owns or manages a tool rental warehouse in the Industrial Park. A few months ago, this buddy let Gary (free of charge) use some specialized equipment to rip up the age-old tile in the shop so Gary could put new ones down (it’s a black & white checker pattern, now). I think he might also be letting Gary use some equipment (FoC) at his house, but I’m not sure.

In any case, ever since replacing the tile, every Saturday afternoon, Gary’s been sending over a few pizzas, free of charge. We never deliver them to Gary’s buddy — I don’t know if he works Saturdays or not — instead, we deliver them to whatever grease monkeys are working the counter. My beef is that these guys never tip. Maybe it’s just me — and I might be biased in saying this — but if my boss were arranging for his buddy to deliver to me a lunch free of cost to me, I’d find a buck or two for the guy bringing them.

Whatever. I’ve mentioned it to Gary, and every now and then his buddy’ll leave some cash for me. Rarely.

Last week, Gary was out of town, and the counter boys called up the store looking for pizzas. I don’t know if it was Gary’s buddy who called or not, but as we’d had no instruction on giving them free pizza, Brett was all, “No free shit on my shift!” They were quite unpleased when I told them the total upon my arrival, but as I explained to them, there’d been no instruction left for us, and I was sure Gary and his pal could work out a refund. Finally, grudgingly, the older guy took cash out of his till for me.

Exact change.

I swear, I can never get a break from these assholes.

***

One of my deliveries today was to the Oregon Ridge Nature Center. In short, you drive past the Oregon Grill, past “The Beach” and up a road to a parking area. There is a road that leads up to the Nature Center itself but a large sign is posted which reads, “Authorized Vehicles Only.” I contemplated parking my car and walking up the road (I could use the exercise) but laziness won out and I drove up anyway. After (accidently!) kicking a trashcan containing a copperhead snake (sorry!) I joked with the woman who paid me that I was presuming a vehicle used for pizza delivery was authorized.

I am rubbing the sleep from my eyes. A restless two hour nap didn’t help me rest much. The only clean socks I had this morning was this pair of winter (i.e., long) socks, so there I am, slumbering in bed in a t-shirt, boxers, and the socks dangling off my feet, which are themselves hanging over the edge. I think Tippy was playing with the socks. With her claws. I think I might’ve kicked her, once, in reflex to a claw digging into my toe. I know that whatever happened and whoever it was, there were claws attacking me again shortly thereafter.

When Feet Strike Back?

The test was easier than I expected. There was an information packet the Postal Service had mailed earlier which contained sample questions similar to those on the exam. I’m not, I think, supposed to say too much about the exam and what’s on it, but only one section (the memorization) really gave me trouble, and I think I did passable on that. From start to finish, once the test was started, it only took an hour and a half or so.

Key word: started.

As in, the information I got said the test started at eight, so I rose my ass up out of bed at a quarter after six and got myself down to Glen Burnie shortly after seven.

Arriving at the ballroom, I had to present the first page from the information packet along with my driver’s license. I also had to get past a guy with a metal-detector wand. That was fun.

I wasn’t the only person who got themselves to Glen Burnie before eight o’clock. The exam was held in some garishly decorated, poorly lit ballroom. Even the Test Monitors were complaining about the location — piss poor parking, awful lighting, and a worse sound system. The folks in the far corner kept having to shout “Can’t hear you!” at whichever Test Monitor was trying to use the PA system to administer the test.

Oh, but that came later, after they actually started the test.

Because for probably an hour and a half about the exam was supposed to start, we all sat and waited as more and more stagglers kept being admitted. Apparently the Post Office has been running two or more exams per day at the ballroom for the entire week, and people were failing to show up when they were scheduled, but rather, whenever they felt like it. In any case, the small group I was sitting with was quickly mumbling about, “It’s past eight o’clock” and “What the fuck, why don’t we start?” and “Cripes, now I know why my dad bitches about the government being inefficient…”

Once the exam started things moved fairly quickly. Of the testing population, there were probably about nine hundred people, a good number of those were middle-aged or older. One of the forms we were handed was a “choice sheet” which listed the twenty-four or so post office branches located within the Baltimore Region Employment Office (or whatever they termed it)*. You were supposed to select what three Post Offices you would like to be considered for employment at (I suppose final hiring is done by individual Post Masters?), as well as what job openings they had. I marked Cockeysville, Lutherville-Timonium, and Owings Mills. One white girl, at the other end of the table, made a big deal about how she wanted to work in a small, rural post office where she didn’t have to deal with “urban life” (read: black people, which is how I and I think everyone who overhead her interpreted her comment). There weren’t many white people around (maybe a dozen and a half?), and I was distinctly uncomfortable as she (quite loudly) made these comments. Thankfully, none of my table-mates took it out me, instead rolling their eyes and ignoring the idiot.

Did I mention the Monitors constantly interupted testing repeatedly to warn the folks who had parked in specific areas were going to get their vehicles towed if they didn’t move them immediately? “Black Ford Explorer, License Plate…”

“We told you where to park!” one Monitor said at the PA stand. That’s not true, though - nothing on the information packet said anything about where or where not to park.

Fortunately, the last three sections were a “personality” test, and once finished, applicants were free to turn their test over to a Monitor and scram. As soon as I was finished — it was the same five questions repeated fifty times — I was out the door. Thankfully my car had not been towed, but removing myself from the parking lot was a bit of a pain as cars were parked illegally everywhere — they blocked lanes and other vehicles. I finally freed myself and raced north on Ritchie Highway, glad to be free.

I got home slightly before noon.

And napped.

And now am about to head off to work.

(Hopefully, not for much longer)

Woot!

*There was only one entry for Baltimore City, so I guess working at a specific City P.O. is “as will”)

My exam for the Post Office is tomorrow. Morning. At eight.

In Glen Burnie.

I bought a pair of nice khakis to wear, and started a load of laundry about an hour ago with the intention of washing those pants, a white t-shirt, and a black polo shirt to wear to the exam.

I put the black polo and the white t-shirt in the laundry. I, about thirty seconds ago, realized that the khakis are still in the bag. Son of a … In addition, after putting the laundry in the washer, I let it sit for an hour before remembering to stick it in the dryer. Which means I can either leave it there until I get home from work or be late to work.

(I’ll leave it).

In any case, I need to set my alarm for six and be in bed no later than midnight. I’d like to get down there earlier, particularly as opposed to getting down there late, right?

The exam itself lasts three and a half hours, so I should be home around noonish tomorrow. The information packet says it takes three weeks for exam scores to be processed, and the hiring procedure is based on the exam score.

I’m nervous, but I’m sure I’ll be wanting to throw up tomorrow on my way to Glen Burnie. I also bought a box of #2 pencils and a sharpener for the exam - I’m supposed to bring the pencils, and I want to make sure I’ve got a sharpener ‘cuz somehow I don’t think they will.

I have another exam, on the 22nd, with the Bel Air regional office. That exam is at a wonderful eleven am.

And I’m glad that one is in Bel Air — I’m wondering WTF is up with always having to drive down to Glen Burnie for my various interviews & related meetings …

Ogre put in his two weeks notice today. He was hired by corporate to work at the Goucher Store. “I dunno,” he was saying at work, “This guy is saying he’s going to work me like forty hours a week, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to come by and help out when Greg is on vacation.”

Because forty hours a week is soooo much. Besides, after corporate’s had him for about a week they’ll probably send him right back to us. Joy. Things work out, however, Ogre was scheduled a full slate next week and I picked up a shift and a half from him, as I’ve been neglecting my hours lately and need to, uh, get out of that trend.

This morning, at the other job, the new girl, Sam, let it slip that she is, technically, a midget. It is a bit odd that Gary hired her, as he once insisted he would never hire any girls: “Everybody looks at their asses and tries to sleep with them and no work ever gets done!” But not only did he hire her, he also hired her friend Jo. And, yeah, probably has something to do with their parents being friends of Gary.

(Which also explains why Gary went to every single employee and explained in no uncertain terms how anyone so much as looking at the girls wrong would be chit-chattin’ with the business end of a shotgun).

In any case, Sam mentioned she was technically a midget. And, well, she is rather short. Zap and Gary heard this, looked at each other, and the rest of the afternoon was filled with sacastic remarks concerning the yellow brick road, umpa-loompas, and the hiring practices of midget porn producers.

I almost blew my top with Sam. She’s primarily been on counter, which means she’s taking a lot of phone orders. In two weeks, she has failed to grasp the concept of taking a delivery order to a business. Alternatively, she will forget to get an address, business name, contact name, extension number or suite number. If she remembers that, she forgets to total the order, or neglects to inquire if the customer would like to add a tip to the credit card. Three times - three times! - I’ve written her a cheat-sheet of what information she needs for a delivery time and three times - three times! - it has vanished from sight the next day I work with her. After spending ten minutes running around the Executive Plaza looking for a person who ordered a pizza (Sam didn’t get a phone number, and no business name, but did get a suite number, which is great except Executive Plaza has four buildings and of course, the suite number I was looking for was in the last building I got to). So by the time I got back to the store I was really ready to kill her — throttling her was going to be my number one option, but I was also considering drowning her in the sauce bucket.

In any case, she know has List #4 Of The Very Important Contact Information You Need On Delivery Orders and I’m sure that tomorrow I’ll be writing List #5.

Later in the day, Gary and I were talking about the Jeep Jamboree or whatever it is up in the Poconos in two weeks. He’s taking his Unlimited up. “Need to crawl under it tonight, see what skid-plates I need,” he told me. Yeah, then get ‘em shipped to you express. He signed up for the most advanced trail he can find, and he’s worried they won’t let him participate.

This topic somehow led us into Alpine Sliding. When I was a kid, my family used to go up to Vermont every summer (well, maybe not every summer, but four or five in a row). I think we’d go to Manchester, or Montpelier? The names slip, I admit. It was a small town in a valley, as I recall, and nearby was, what was during the winter months, a hip-hoppin’ ski lodge. During the summer other modes of entertainment were brought to light, namely: alpine sliding. As I recall, you’d take a ski-lift to the top of the mountain, then ride a slide down several different concrete half-tubes.

(God I love Google: this has to have been where we went.)

Discussion then somehow changed to Iceland. Not entirely sure how … anyway, I brought up something Neckbone had mentioned on his blog: the 5th gait of Icelandic horses. When the new girl, Sam, came back for dinner shift, I asked her what the gaits of a horse were. Sam, who claims to have been around horses her entire life, looked at me as if I was speaking Klingon.

“Gait, y’know, gait?”

“Gate?” she repeated, holding her hands together and then opening them slowly and making a squeaking sound.

“No, silly,” Jo chided her. “Gait … speed.”

Mike asked in comments,

Just so I don’t get on your bad side, perhaps you could post a handy chart for pizza delivery tipping? I’ve always been a bit unsure on the topic. Does one tip on the tip on the total price of the order or the number of items we make you carry? Is there a standard Good/Bad percentage you look for? I know I didn’t understand how to tip at restaurants until I dated a waitress.

Mike,

The best guide is to tip $4 or 20%, whatever is larger. And if the shop you order from has a “delivery charge”, make sure to find out how much of that — if any — actually gets to the driver (usually it finds its way into the owner’s grubby hands).

For me, I usually look at tips on a good/bad factor dependent on a few conditions — the first is the proximity of the delivery to the store. The further I have to go, the higher the tip I expect. Likewise, if I’m delivering a pizza in snow or during a thunderstorm, I expect higher tips. I also expect larger tips on holidays. Conversely, if the asshat taking phone orders tells the customer it’ll be at their door in half an hour when really our average delivery time is an hour, I’m expecting a smaller than usual tip. Also, even if there are factors out of my control that slow down the delivery — kitchen fuck-ups, traffic, etc. — depending on how much I’m slowed down, I expect a negative tip hit.

I set my own route (the order in which I take my deliveries) and it is certainly prioritized based on which customers have treated me the best in the past. And you’d best bet all drivers chit-chat about who the good customers are as opposed to the cheap-asses. It’s not so much about taking food to cheap-asses late as it is getting food hot to the people who take care of us, y’know?

… Hell?

It generally has all the factors I like about working. Me and only one other driver. Busy. Ross running the shift. Usually a good formula to make cash. Not last night. Last night was … well, look above.

The thunderstorm didn’t help any. Jacksonville/Phoenix is a very rural area — stretches of farms as far as the eye can see, dotted randomly with McMansions and the oddly placed trailer. Rows of corn give way suddenly to hints of suburbia and you’re just as likely to encounter a brand new H2 or a Porsche on the winding back roads as you are a tractor or some other ridiculously oversized farm vehicle. The delivery area itself is roughly as large as Baltimore City, yet there are only four traffic lights, four gas stations, and no roads wider than two lanes. There are at least a dozen one-lane bridges, and most roads are through heavily forested areas with large beautiful trees that shield drivers from the glaring sun.

Of course, on nights like last night it means that there were large branches littering the pavement, and it made driving a bit more treacherous. Plus, of course, everyone and their mother decided to order pizza, and what with traffic + weather the result was super long delayed deliveries.

I would like to thank the people who could see the weather and weren’t (too) upset when I arrived with their food over an hour after they’d ordered it. Most of them tipped very well, even the lady who had no power. They made up for the rest of the night.

On the customer side, thanks to the lady up off Glen Elyn who gave me an evil look and didn’t tip me. “That’s for being late,” she told me. Thanks for being a bitch, I thought about telling her. Little did she understand - she normally only tips a buck, and while I would have liked that buck, it’s not like she’s really hurting my earnings, y’know? Plus, the next time she orders, her pizzas going to sit in my trunk — out of the hot bag — while I take all the other deliveries I’m also routed with.

Also, to the asshole who has the three mile long driveway? I don’t mind having to stop my car to move big branches out of my way, but the least you can do is tip more than a buck when I get to you. I don’t even think you did it to be mean, I think you just did it to because you don’t know better. By the way, when you set out today in that nice flashy sports car, I hope you notice the excellent job I did putting all of those branches back across your driveway.

I am very glad last night is over.

Good god, what happened to me? It’s like I went from “Blog Whore Supreme” to “Pre-Content Challenge JWER” overnight.

That’s sort of to be expected — spending a lot of time on another hobby this weekend, keeping it under wraps for now (the project, not the hobby), something I’d been thinking about doing for a long time and finally decided to start working on it. I’m about as far as I can get on it for now — and, on a personal note, I think it looks fuckin’ fantastic. Waiting on a Bricklink order to arrive (hopefully soon), and hopefully I’ll have it to show ya’ll soon.

Here’s a hint:

***

I’ve been dog-sitting for this guy (The Mysterious Mister N.) while he’s been in Iceland for two and a half-weeks. Pila was quite a mess - peeing and vomiting all over the place. Ate two house plants and destroyed a vase.

Payment for house sitting was N.’s Jeep Wrangler. I enjoyed it thoroughly, although I’d been hoping to knock the odometer over the 17,000 marks. I put roughly 700 miles of hard driving on the Jeep, so I’d say I got my fun out of it. I’d been planning a little surprise for Mr. N on his return to Baltimore yesterday evening. I was going to leave a note for him on his door, “Mr. N., I regret to inform you that I will not be able to return your Jeep to you in one piece.”

See, because two pieces of the Jeep - the doors - would be in his basement. Then I’d return the rest of the Jeep to him … whenever. Unfortunatly, I had to work tonight, so while the doors stayed inside his home (the dining room), I was not able to give him a good scare. He called me last night and I related this to him, and he paused for a moment, then said, “Y’know, after a day of travel, coming home to that … I think I probably would have introduced you to my friend, Mr. Benelli.”*

He’s such a jokester.

PS - Mr. N., please note that the blue bowl in your sink - which was removed from your dishwasher - was used so that Pila did not have to eat her wet dog food from the can. Figured Alpo isn’t anything the dishwasher can’t clean good as new, and couldn’t figure where you other yellow lab-food-able bowls might be.

***

There are a bunch of insiders at the franchise job in high school or just graduated. One of them, Ryan, looks exactly like Daniel Radcliffe. Another, Elliot, has bright red hair. Anyway, today, at shift change, Elliot (who is running some day shifts), me, and Ross had a brief discussion about the newest Harry Potter book (technically, Ross doesn’t read them, he listens to the audio books). I mentioned to Elliot Ryan’s resemblance to a certain Boy-Who-Lived, and Elliot’s eyes widened, “OH MY GOD YOU’RE RIGHT!”

“Doesn’t that make you a Weasley, then?” Ross inquired of Elliot.

An hour or so later, bored out of mind, I began changing names on the schedule. I changed Ryan’s to “Harry Potter”, Elliot’s to “Ron Weasley”, and Greg (the owner’s) to “T. Riddle.” On a whim, I changed Zebulon’s name to Hermoine (hey, he’s got the hair) and Ogre’s to “Neville L.”

Ogre, recently returned from vacation to Florida or some other place with a lot of sun and heat (coulda just stayed here) mumbled about his name change when Ross was trying to check him out, “So now I’m N-ee-vil, am I?” (That’s how he pronounced it).

At this point, Ogre shoved his foot into his mouth for the umpteenth time. He’s really quite good at it, I must admit. “Harry Potter is for twelve year olds.”

Mind you, the person saying this once bragged that he spent some ridiculous amount of money on a computer for the sole purpose of viewing porn. The only reading he ever does is of the articles in porno-mags (or, at least, he keeps claiming “I buy them for the articles.”)

I think Ogre preforms opinions on certain things that he honestly doesn’t care about just so he can involve himself in unrelated discussions. Once, when he’d just started working here, I was talking to a guy named Mike B. about tv box sets on DVD when Ogre walked up and somehow changed the conversation to how people who don’t believe in God shouldn’t spend American money since it has printed on it “In God We Trust.”

Of course, if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you probably know what I think of Ogre. (Minus the martial arts crap).

What I Should Have Said to Ogre, “Oh, so it’s on your level is it?”

I did not say this for a few reasons. Primarily because Greg asked me to back off Ogre. Prior to Ogre’s vacation, he and I had been engaged in an escalating series of confrontations. I’ll say what I said to Greg — it’s frustrating to work on a busy night, trying to get as many of your closing duties done as you can between deliveries, only to come back and find out that even though all you have to do is mop, you can’t because the guy who is supposed to have swept the floor - Ogre - hasn’t because he’s been in the back munching on four-hour old cheesesticks. Oh, and he’s also got back from his last delivery an hour ago. Extraordinarily frustrating. So, out of respect to Greg, I kept my mouth shut.

The second reason is that really, I don’t find much childish about Harry Potter. Maybe the first book, a little bit, but they’re still better than any of Tom Clancy’s technomanuals, and far and away better than anything Stephen King’s put out lately. Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” was on-par, and “The Historian” was a considerable let down.

In any case, about a second after Ogre’s pronouncement, Ross swiveled away from the office desk and fixed his eyes on Ogre. Ross is a tall guy, with a great bushy beard. Bump into him in a forest and you might think he’d be living in a shack playing with explosives. Really, he’s a big playful goof, and his nephews and nieces (whom he lives with) probably call him “Chewbacca” because he bears a certain resemblance to the big walking carpet. Ross addressed Ogre simply, “Are you saying I read at a twelve-year old’s level?”

Remarkeably, Ogre, who generally hangs around the store for hours after he’s checked out, was gone within five minutes. Woohoo for Ross!

(*That entire quote — or at least, the vast slim majority of it — was made up.)

Last night on a delivery, to a regular customer who orders at least twice a week and always tips well, she addressed her dog — a big big big creature, don’t ask me what kind, I’m amazed myself that I can identify a Golden Retriever from a Yellow Lab — as “Guiness.”

I inquired if the dog was named after the beer.

“Yep. He’s black and tan and very stout!”

Dear Carl,

I understand that you work in a garage, but if you aren’t going to tip me, could you at least pay me with a bill that isn’t stained with grease, oil, and dirt? I’d like to keep my wallet clean. Thank you.

-Your Loving Pizza Guy

The reason I bombed my apartment today was that I was able to arrange for a co-worker –Sketchy — to cover my shift tomorrow afternoon, and thus have ample time to clean my apartment. True, I was expecting a fine layer of … something … to cover every available surface, and that isn’t the case.

However, Sketchy just called me with bad news: his car isn’t going to be ready in time for tomorrow’s afternoon shift, so I’m stuck working after all. This is frustrating for a variety of reasons, but my irritation is tempered because I’m fairly certain at least some of this is out of Sketchy’s control. I’m going to try to call a couple people to see if they can work, but I think I’ll be in for a long night of cleaning, vaccuuming, and doing laundry.

After I work tonight, that is.

JMac’s wedding is on Saturday, and he invited both Gary and Robin. Of course, Gary made up the schedule so that Robin could get to the wedding and then close at work; and so that he himself could only make it to the reception.

Gary’s not trying to screw anyone, but there’s a bit of a shortage in terms of employees, and two of three available managers aren’t going to be able to take off for the entire day on Saturday. Besides which, Gary probably only wants to go to the reception anyway …

… and as he admitted to JMac, “I thought your vacation was the following week!”

I had also requested Saturday off because Harry Potter is being released and, y’know, being a dork, I was hoping to spend the whole day enjoying Harry’s sixth year at Hogwarts. Because, y’know, I’m a dork.

Sadly, tis no to be — I’m working in the afternoon, but I’m off at four, so I’ll probably be able to get to Atomic Books to pick up the copy I requested be held for me. (Hmmm - wonder if I could bribe Rachel into letting me pick my copy up Friday night…?) Oh, plus, I might have a date Saturday night — not sure if it’ll be a “date” or a “date”, she’s a goth/Christian who teaches high school and is spending her summer vacation delivering pizzas. Worst case scenario: I get to see Batman Begins a second time. I’ll live.

Oh, here I go getting away from what I was talking about …

Anyway, so Robin switched with Mark, which means Robin is now working day shift, and both he and Gary are off in time for JMac’s reception, which is the way I think they want it — no boring church, just the food, booze, and slutty bridesmaids. (Actually, Robin doesn’t drink, and they’re both devoted husbands, but I’m sure Gary’ll make considerable headway into the booze and still have a hangover Monday morning).

Long story short - I’m the only opening driver and I’m working with both Robin and Gary. Saturday is going to be absolute hell. Usually it isn’t a big deal, because if I can get either one of them started on a conversation about jobs, home buying, or Jeeps, they usually forget to use me for the cheap slave labor I so often feel like. But since both are working, I’m essentially fucked.

(On a more personal note, I’m glad I never have to work with JMac again. Nice guy, but I’d get furious when he’d screw me on routing with the logic, “You’re here all day … you’ll make more money.” Well, yeah, because I am here all day, while you leave after three hours, stands to reason that the guy who worked a nine-hour would make more than the guy who worked a three-hour, don’t it?)

Every now and then, at the franchise, someone will call up and request buffalo style wings … but they want them hotter than we usually provide them. Every now and then, we actually have the time and desire to grant that request.

We can’t do anything too elaborate, of course, after all, time = money. But tonight I was slightly ahead on my closing chores and figured it would be fun to have a guy burn his tongue off. That happened once, when I was a shift manager for one of this companies corporate locations, probably five years ago or so. The guy asked for “wings as hot as you can make ‘em!” and called back half an hour later, “Those wings were waaaay too hot!”

Actually, those wings were as hot as we could make them, as requested.

Also, of course, we’re limited to ingredients in the store to spice these wings up. Back in the day I actually kept a bottle of honey in the walk-in to add considerable flavor to wings. Honey buffalo wings were and always will be fuckin’ awesome.

(In Annapolis on Friday, eating at The Sly Fox, the three of us had chicken wings dipped in Thai sauce and they were truly delicious).

So, anyway, I’d decided to make this guy some hot(ter) wings. He’d requested that we chop some jalapeanos up on top, but of course, there’s nothing in the store that could be used to chop jalapeanos in the first place … and I also didn’t want to stop at just jalapeanos.

The wings are prepped before each shift and are kept wrapped in order of ten in tin-foil in either a small fridge next to the make-line or back in the walk-in. I grabbed a ten-pack, opened the foil, and placed it on a small pizza screen. I’d already cleaned the squeeze bottle we used for buffalo sauce, so I grabbed a pre-packaged hot sauce intended for the chicken nuggets. A quick spray of that across the wings, and I threw in some crushed red pepper for taste. I liberally doused the wings with juice from the jalapeano tub, then threw about a dozen of the peppers atop the wings. I put the wings in the oven for a cycle-and-a-half, and when they came out boy were they just screaming, “Your ass is going to remember us tomorrow!”

If the customer called back, I didn’t hear of his verdict of the wings. I know one thing — they’re hot. And his ass isn’t going to appreciate his stomach’s taste.

My first delivery was to a manufacturing company located in Hunt Valley. L., the friendly middle-aged black receptionist triggered the automatic doors remotely, as she always does when she sees me walk in. “Is it for T.Y.?” she inqured. T.Y. usually places this order: three large pies and a 6-pack of assorted canned sodas.

“Nope, M.K.,” I said, looking at the ticket stuck to the side of the top box.

“You’re fucking me,” L. muttered, “she just left not two minutes ago!”

One thing I don’t like about L. is that her phone/computer hookup causes her to use a “hands-free” headset. This can cause communications issues, as I’m never quite sure when she’s talking to me, or when she’s talking to someone on the phone. Today, she was trying to talk to me and I was oblivious, finally she spoke loudly and forcefully, “You ignoring me on purpose?” I managed a “huh?” then we talked about what we did for the fourth.

(Speaking of what we did on the fourth, not a channel, not a single goddamn channel aired 1776. WTF is with that?)

Long story short, M.K. hadn’t told L. who to contact for the food, nor had M.K. told anyone in her department she’d even ordered food for them. It turned out to be the same department as T.Y., unfortunatly T.Y. is on vacation until Wednesday. Finally, someone in M.K.’s department tracked her down on her cell phone and another person was sent to sign for the food.

M.K.’s order was a delivery for 11:45. I got to the lobby at 11:40. I left the lobby at noon. Some people!

(L. is my favorite receptionist, although she always thinks I work for Pizza Hutt, no matter how often I correct her).

***

Then, pulling back into the lot later in the day, I traded paint with a parked car. With, of course, the owner sitting in the car. He was nice enough about it, and the car was older. There didn’t look to be any body damage, just a blue streak on his white paint job, and a white streak on my own. In my defense, he was parked directly on the yellow line. In his defense, he was parked, and I wasn’t: my error.

I’m going to talk to Bart at the autobody shop across the alley. Maybe he can buff the guy’s paint job into shape in exchange for a free lunch.

***

If you live on Fairwood View, off Cooper, and own the dark blue Wrangler, beware. Your kid took it out joyriding down Cooper, then onto Paper Mill into Cockeysville. Three of his teenage friends were his passengers. The kid in the front passenger seat was dangling his entire leg out of the body of the Jeep. If a cop sees that shit, your son is going to be on the line for the punishment, possibly including reckless endangerment and/or reckless driving. Also, the lack of side-view mirrors on your Wrangler, while usually probably not a huge deal, in such a case I think would merit an equipment violation of some sort. Hey, I’m just sayin’. Personally, the kid-with-his-leg-out-the-door looked like he wanted to have his limb ripped off by a stray tree branch, so who am I to tell you what to do?

I was dreading work this afternoon because I would be stuck all day alone in the store with Ogre, whom I generally find great dislike for. But today I had a pleasant distraction with me, and finished my chores — dishes, boxes — in about half an hour, then settled into the alcove in the back, and framed in by a soda machine, empty dough trays, and stacks of variously sized pizza boxes, settled myself into a stray office chair, kicked off my well-worn sneakers, and picked up from where I’d left off in what is still a suspenseful and spooky work of literary art.

Sadly, the afternoon was not all for consuming tales of Drakulya. I had a handful of deliveries and found myself — oddly enough — dreading them. Most of them were close by, and all of them showed their gratitude for my efforts in their gratuities. I also had to pad up front in my miraculously not-yet hole riddled socks to ring up some customers when Ogre was otherwise engaged (read: trying to tend the oven), leading one woman to remark, snootily, “Comfortable?”

(Well, no, not really, because when reading my head was resting against a pizza box as a cushion, and while that is slightly better than using a cold, hard tile as a cushion, it, uh, isn’t by much.)*

Also, Greg had promised to bring in paychecks, but as noon rolled around without his appearance, I called him. And he didn’t answer. So I called him again, and then a third time. Finally he picked up, irritated — well, duh, it was me — and after I pressed him about the matter he told me the checks were already in the store … hidden. Then, because he didn’t want me ripping the place apart, he told me where they were hidden, and voila! A paycheck for me.

I knew pretty much from the second I cracked the spine that I’d like Kostova’s book because it seemed to follow from the same general path as Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell in that both works present themselves as the final product of literary research. Although The Historian lacks the copious footnotes of Clarke’s work (which are one of the best parts of it), it is, I think, that presentation — “This is not fiction! This is my dissertation!” — which gives the work a leg-up by fooling (eh, maybe not so much in Kostova’s case, but I had to remind myself that JS&MN wasn’t really a history book every few chapters) readers into thinking, “Hey, this is legitimate research, I’m actually learning something and being productive, not merely entertaining myself!”

I mean, The Historian is entertaining, don’t get me wrong. It’s great! Certainly better than my latest Netflix pick (damn, and I don’t get more DVDs until Wednesday. Fucking holiday).

*I told her this, she gave me a look, said “You’re odd” and left without inquiring as to the smile that spread over my face.