Confessions of a delivery man

While most of you know (at least those two or three of you that actually read this blog) I deliver packages for a living, you don't neccesarily know the details and intricacies of the job. I mean, how could you? It's a big, bad world out there in deliveryville, let me tell ya.

Every once in awhile when one of us poor delivery-type souls is going to be out later than the bartenders, we get help from another driver that feels momentarily sympathetic, or maybe we know something about said driver that we shouldn't, (sorta like black mail, or in this case, brown parcel). Well, last night was one of those nights. My friend Matt called me and said "where you at? I'm coming to help you." So, I told him and he found me and hopped on my truck to be my runner.
Now, when you get help from a driver it's a rare occurrence, so you take the opportunity to share your wealth of useful knowledge while you can. "This guy get's Victoria Secret packages every other week, and he lives alone!" or "These people just bought this house, cash on the spot...Californicaters!" or "There's a dog at this next place but he's never bitten me" and then when Matt's almost to the porch I yell "sickem' Satan! sickem boy!!" Fun times.

Anyway, Matt and I got to swapping stories about the funny things like, what we do to keep our jobs interesting, and some of the embarrassing things we've done. Here are a sampling of just mine and Matt's.

-last winter it was about 20 degrees out and it was late at night so I tried to gingerly tiptoe up the steps at the side of this house. When I got there I knelt down to lay the package at the door, just outside the dogdoor, when suddenly and frenetically out jumped a little 'kick dog'! Scared the pee outta me!!! Well, lucky for me, the package I was about to deliver was just a skosh larger than peewee-the-kick-dog's door....Yep! That's right you little son of a bitch (hey, c'mon you know it's true!), looks like your sleepin' outside tonight!!
-just a couple of weeks ago, as Matt would tell it, he was out after dark (duh!) and it was damp and dewy weather. He launched himself up a set of deck stairs that counted maybe five or six feet high, dropped the package, knocked the requisite 7 times and turned and ran. Well, he lost his footing on the first step and snowballed, elbows and legs a flailing, all the way to the ground. By this time a small boy had come to answer the door, heard the ruckus, and ran to see what could make such a clatter. He darted back to the house yelling "Mommy, I think we caught Santa Claus!!!!"
-almost always I make my deliveries out of the passenger side door. It's what we're trained to do and quite frankly, just makes the most sense since there's nothing impeding your progress, like a seat. I'm not sure why, maybe because I was tired, I don't know, but the other night I decided to slither over my seat and out the driver side door and circle around the front of my truck. Not a big deal. I ran the package maybe a hundred yards to the house and the same hundred back. Now, here's an important side note: it's completely and utterly pitch black dark. Yeah. That dark. I'm running back toward the passenger side of my truck like I always do, which means full-speed ahead, can you see where this is headed? I couldn't either. I leaped up toward the inside step of the truck, only to abruptly remember....I hadn't opened the door. I was like a big brown fly splattered on the side of my truck. OUCH!!
-there's a woman on my route that's a QVC junkie. I mean, 2 or 3 packages a DAY! (and that's since her New Year's resolution to 'quit this nasty habit') I really don't get it. She lives in a trailer at the end of the world's worst driveway. Or, it might just be the best driveway. I swear it's been scientifically engineered so that when you're concentrating on missing that 3 foot deep pothole on the left, you snag your mirror on the tree on the right. And if you veer slightly toward the middle you're fighting salmon swimming up the stream running down the center!! No really! I think I once spotted Robert Redford here during the filming of ' a river runs through it'. I digress. About a month ago she received a rare package( rare in the fact that it wasn't from QVC) from Barnes and Noble. As I handed her the package I said, "here's that book you ordered on how to stop your shopping compulsion." She's down to one package a day.
Who says work can't be fun??