Special Delivery

Let’s file this under, ‘What Would You Do?’
Suppose the pizza you ordered half an hour ago was brought piping hot to your door by a teacher at your kid’s posh private school? How about if said teacher was also a parent at said swank school? It's a question I've been faced with often; once a week to be precise. Only, I wasn't the one ordering the pie, I was the one delivering.

While you’re working out your answer, let me tell you what one parent, slash customer, did. First, she hitched up her jaw. Then, she forced a smile and asked incredulously, “What are you doing? Is this for real? What are you doing?” She posed these questions as though I was standing naked on her doorstep; fair enough, in the eyes of this college professor, my second job was just as preposterous. As for my response? Well, what could I say?
It was all true.

For a short time last fall I lived a double life. I was a Montessori assistant- teacher by day and pizza driver by night. The reason why I gave up my Friday nights and became an employee where I was once a devoted customer is simple. Determining that your heart muscle is doubly wounded from the radiation treatment that saved your life 15 years ago turns out to be an expensive jaunt through the land of “we’ll see” and “let’s try this test.” Before I knew it, one thing led to another when I joked with my neighbor Willie last summer about coming to work at the local pizza delivery kitchen. Although he is in his sixties, he refuses to give up his hobby of a job because the “dough is just too good to pass up.” And so with Willie’s relentless encouragement, I signed up to pay off the last bit of my substantial medical bills and do my part for fiscal responsibility.

The reason I'm no longer the ‘pizza mom’ is more complex: the juxtaposition of performing what I would consider blue collar work while living in a white collar world was just not something I could stomach. Straddling the two worlds was a bit awkward to say the least. I’m fairly certain none of my friends would ever consider delivering pizza as way to make a few more bucks.

Luckily, there were lots of perks that made the job tolerable. The work itself was actually quite fun. Chatting with the diverse crew of drivers (each there for a different and sometimes noble reason) between runs was a hoot and something I looked forward to each week. Finding addresses and learning intimately how neighborhoods are arranged was akin to working a puzzle. Deep discounts on the pizza my children adore put me in their highest esteem. In their eyes, my one night each week as ‘pizza mom’ was far nobler than my day job working as a teacher. And when it was all said and done, taking home a hundred bucks each night was pretty sweet, too.

But none of those perks could ever outweigh the sickening feeling one gets when two cultures clash. I’m speaking of the wealthy and the not so wealthy. Or shall I say the perceived wealthy and the perceived not so wealthy?

Let me digress into a little background information. Each of the twelve other drivers has a different reason for donning the regulation Pagliacci polo shirt to augment his or her income. One man in his late 70’s (with more energy than I’ll ever hope to have) is a retired Navy SEAL as well as a patent-holding engineer. I don’t think he can stand being home in the evening without his beloved late wife; so he occupies a few of his nights each week bringing other people their dinners. Another man, in his 60’s as well, is from Beirut and delivers 7 days a week to send his earnings back to his wife and children back home. Of course several of the drivers are college students; one is in pre-med, another in pre-dental, a few are liberal arts majors. Diana is a young grandmother raising her two grandchildren; she needs to be home during the day to take care of the boys so she drives at night. Sean is a musician. Mo, from somewhere in the Middle East, is a father of three. He works pizza 6 nights a week in addition to his full time job in admissions at the University. “I just want to provide a good life for my wife and children,” he once told me. You see? You just never know who’s bringing you your pizza when you answer that knock.

Our customers are diverse as well. The 34 grids representing the neighborhoods on my delivery map cover only about 10 square miles yet represent home values ranging from the low 200’s to in excess of a couple million. You get the picture. One run would be to young kids in their first apartment, the next to a fabulous manse right on the water.

Those are the deliveries that the drivers loathed. And I loathed them too. Not just because I knew before I left the shop, my tip would be minimal, if at all. Not because those neighborhoods chose to dispense with the grid system altogether and plot their streets like something that resembles a plate of spaghetti. But because more often than not, when I rang the doorbell at those magnificent homes I was greeted with an attitude so rank with elitism that there were times I was overcome with that sickening feeling one gets just before you vomit. It was as obvious as the cheese on the pizza that anyone who would stoop to this sort of work had no place in their world. It’s not that I wanted to be invited in and become friends with my clients, I just wanted the same respect they’d give me if they met me at my other job. After all, what would these people think if they knew about my real job? Or about the black tie fundraisers my husband and I attend. I wanted to scream at these people that I too, read the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Atlantic Monthly. I too, am a public radio subscriber and a member of the art museum. I too, know the best spa in town to a get a hot stone massage. And yes, I work out at the same health club as you. And didn’t I see you at Lampreia the other night? But, try as you might, you just can’t convey all that in a sixty second exchange. Number of runs is the name of the game in the pizza biz. More deliveries equal more money.

And I thought prejudice was obsolete. One time I delivered to a nice home in the neighborhood where my husband grew up and my mother-in-law still lives; that is to say, our home away from home. I knocked on the door of this understated house the Friday after Thanksgiving to be greeted by a perky twenty-something, her college aged sibs and their mother decorating the Christmas tree. A pleasant scene for sure; until miss perky hollered “mom pay the lady.” At which point “mom” scurried off somewhere, presumably to get the checkbook, while I stood waiting with the door wide open and twenty pounds of pizza (it’s heavier than you would think) in hand. As I waited for nearly 5 minutes I couldn’t help but notice the terrific art collection. It wasn’t as if they concealed the Chihuly, after all. When I complemented the woman on the spectacular piece, she eyed me slowly from head to toe (no kidding) and informed be that it was a Dale Chihuly.
“He’s from Seattle you know.”
“Really?” I replied emphatically surprised. “To think, I thought he was a Tacoma native!”
To top off this revolting experience she passed me “two dollars for you dear,” along with the check paying for her dinner.

I know now that it takes a special person to ring those doorbells and deliver those pies. For awhile, it was fun with a capital F. It was just one night a week making it very novel. It was the first time since my allowance earning days that I’d been paid in cash. You can’t imagine what a 5 dollar tip does for your adrenaline.

And now? Now I know that I take a certain social risk if I mention my Friday night occupation while chatting it up with the parents at my school. And an even greater risk when the person on the other side of the door is from my real life. Like it or not, our society is classist. And like it or not we make assumptions based on the work people do.