every pizza i've ever delivered

The little boy who’d answered the door

But was too small to unhook the chain

Yelled out that he’d miss me.

I’d miss me too.

If I knew much about coffee.

He said sometimes when coffee gets old and burnt it has a smell,

A little skunky.

He said he’s been noticing that smell a lot on deliveries,

Wafting out from customer’s open doors.

He said it smelled too sweet to be coffee though.

I laughed.

I told him what it was.

I said weed,

Or bud,

Or herb,

Or whatever it’s called nowadays.

Except (spoiler alert)

I’m real.

I go house to house

In my fossil fuel drawn sleigh

Bringing gifts of happiness,

Carried in a red bag,

The customer said:

Is it still warm.

I stumbled over my tongue for a second

Then realized he was talking about the pizza.

I said:

Yeah.

I didn’t say it with much kindness though

So decided to explain.

I said:

I thought you meant the weather.

It was freezing.

Ice cold.

Not Warm.

On a delivery I drove past a ~ten year old kid

On a six-foot

Triple decker

Unicycle?

Like, it had three wheels

But on top of each other.

Like, only one wheel on the ground.

If this doesn’t make sense

Ten girls loitering at the end of the driveway

Blowing bubbles.

I walked up and one girl said:

Attack.

I said:

Bubbles can’t hurt me.

She said:

Bubbles will kill you.

She seemed serious.

I delivered to a true child of the twenty-first century.

A real millennial

Or whatever’s after that.

She knew how to handle a credit card receipt

Including tip.

And she never stepped off her hover board

Or electric scooter

Or whatever those things are called.

Inside out

All day.

[Pizza Store]’s logo was backwards

And extra shaggy with loose strings.

Nobody said anything.

Not coworkers or management or customers.

Not even the area supervisor who stopped by

He ran

Trying to beat me to his front door

But I didn’t see him crossing my path.

My hotbag obstructed my view.

So I stepped on this red headed boy’s foot.

He went down,

Hands and knees on pavement,

Then bounced right up again.

A little fall won’t ruin the joy of pizza,

Nor crushed toes,

Find that kid who answered the phone and beat the hell out of him.

I didn’t know who answered the phone.

I don’t keep tabs on that kind of thing.

Next the customer said:

Just make sure the hot chick answers next time.

As if he could see who’s on the other end of a call.

As if I would,

Even if I could,

She said:

I’m signing.

The unseen customer said:

Is the driver deaf? Why are you signing?

The customer came into view and said:

He’s dumb at least

If he’s expecting a tip.

But grandma tipped me five dollars on his card

My moment finally arose.

With no time to think and

No time to act,

At least not for most,

I grabbed the peel*

And caught the lost pizza halfway between floor and oven

Like a ninja,

A delivery ninja.

In a pool house.

They were having fun.

Eating, drinking, being merry,

All that kind of stuff.

I was greeted with:

Are you the stripper?

Followed with:

Are you sure you’re not the stripper?

They said they’d pay me,

To strip, they’d already paid for the pizza.

I took my hat off and spun it around my finger for them.

When that wasn’t enough

A customer was digging through her purse for some cash when her adult daughter snuck up behind her

With a fart gun

And started shooting off fart sounds.

The adult daughter said:

Oh mom, really?

The customer got bashful

I don’t know how you could forget something like that but okay.

She said my knock was familiar.

She said I had the same distinct knock as her recently deceased neighbor.

Her eyes got teary as she told me