A Pleasant Drive

As part of my job, I make deliveries. I enjoy making deliveries, but when a delivery goes bad I forget what I like about them. Take yesterday for example. Everything was running along fine. I had my food, my supplies, my drinks. My car was neatly packed, I had plenty of gas and I was leaving early. One delivery at 5:00, a second at 5:30. Perfect. Until I got out onto the street.

All week the streets have been quiet, it's mid-winter school vacation and a lot of lucky people are in warmer places. Did they all come back on Thursday evening? I don't know. But anyway, everyone who was at work must have decided to leave at the same time. Here it was 4:30, usually a busy time, but gridlocked? Not likely. Was it like this at 3:00? Would it be like this at 6:00? Relax, I thought, you have 30 minutes to get somewhere that takes 15. Wrong, it took all of 30 and then some. Still no problem, I've got leeway. Called the client, asked him to meet me on the street as he always does, bring his cart, that's the routine. No problem, he said, be right down. 5 minutes, 10, 15, called him back, did you forget about me? No, I can see my guy right there, he's on the phone, I'll get him right down to you. 5 minutes, 10, wait there's someone looking around. Hi, I say, I have food, are you here to get it? Yeah, I'll get a cart.

I'm thinking, get a cart! get a cart! What the hell have you been doing for the past 25 minutes? Another minute passes, where the hell did he go? Where's that stupid cart? Finally, he's here with the cart. I've been here for 25 minutes, I tell him. He says, I've been down here, I didn't see you, they usually come in. I don't know who "they" is, but I've never gone in before. And why should "they?" Why unload from car to cart, walk 100 feet into a lobby and unload again from cart to cart. Makes no sense, but what's worse, and more pressing, now I'm already overdue at the next delivery which should be only 10 minutes away and that customer isn't answering her phone. I'm getting that knotted up feeling that 10 minutes away might be a lot longer tonight.

Yup, certainly not 10 minutes, and every bit of 30. On my way to a place I've never been before, I can't see the addresses, I can't read the street signs and the frustration of a heavy traffic commute is spilling out all over. Cars are speeding off at green lights, rushing through yellows and honking viciously at anyone who doesn't fit into the hectic grooves, and that just to travel a block and get to the back of the next grid. There is no play for mistakes, which I make, have to circle past my turn, find the right lane this time because hell is waiting if I'm in the wrong lane, ignore the angry revs and glares and finally park in an illegal spot. There aren't any legal ones anyway, and of course this is just one minor inconvenience that I would ordinarily take in stride, but tonight, now that I'm late, late! I can hardly believe it, the illegal parking spot feels like the weight of a senseless bureaucracy placed squarely on my shoulders. Late! I'm pissed off that I have to park illegally to make this delivery, but so it is, and then I go into the clinic, leave the food, the client is happy and I'm done. Done. 13 hours after my day began, I'm done. Shit, I swear. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit! Doesn't help.

All the stress has nowhere to go but to my heart or my head or my mouth and I pick up my voicemail messages and even though my day has already run forever, my wife is politely asking me to pick up her prescription on my way home. Geesh.