Extra Sausage

I didn't realize until he was getting ready to close the door that the guy I just delivered a pizza to wasn't wearing pants.

It was last summer, and I was delivering on the city's west side. This particular deliver was later in the evening--about 10 or so--and I was looking forward to going home. The way I usually deliver a pizza is like this: I walk up to the door, greet the person, then pull their order out of the bag and set it on top of the bag so I don't burn my hand. I remind them of the total, take their cash, then hold the order out and let them lift if off the top of the hot bag. This was exactly what happened here.

He came to the door, I pulled his pizza out of the bag and told him the price. I took the cash and held the pizza out until he took it off the top of the bag. Because of the way I hold the oder out to the customer, I couldn't see him from about mid-chest down until I lowered the bag. That was when I noticed his penis was flapping at me.

But the whole time before that, he had been completely nonchalant about the fact that his pork and beans were in the apartment hallway. Nothing. When he answered the door, there was no looking from my eyes down to his waist and back up; no "lookit what I've got" eyebrow raise; he didn't answer the door with a hearty "How's your evening? Look at my penis!" So the whole time that I'm holding his pizza out to him and he's counting out ones and handing me the cash and taking the pizza, I had absolutely no inkling what was down there. Then I lowered the bag and went to put the cash in my pocket...and there's this guys lil spittin' cobra looking at me with its one good eye. I took a half jump back and think I even squeaked a little.

Even THEN, things didn't turn weird(er). He didn't wink and invite me in. There was no cheap innuendo about offering me a better tip. Nothing. In fact, he was so blasé about it that for a moment, I wondered if I was the weirdo because I was wearing pants. He told me to have a good night, and closed the door.

What. The. Hell.

I've had chicks answer the door in underwear before. I've gone to houses where people were sitting around looking at porn. Corey Taylor of the band Slipknot lives in our delivery area and he's fond of ordering pizzas for parties he throws and having naked ladies answer the door. So it's not like you don't get used to seeing strange stuff when you deliver things to people's homes late at night. But the thing of it is, when people DO shit like that, they usually do it for the effect. Chicks will answer the door in their bras to watch the guys eyes bug out at the gift of free boobies. People do shocking stuff for the shock. At least, people do things they THINK are shocking for the CHANCE to shock people. Most delivery drivers, we see a guy or a chick in their underwear, we just shrug and assume that means we're not getting tipped.

But this guy did absolutely nothing to call attention to it. And once I finally noticed, he STILL didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He didn't even laugh at my--admittedly--funny reaction. That made the experience even more strange.

Whenever someone tries to make the argument that delivery drivers don't deserved to be tipped, I think of that guys penisokyousee, now, that didn't come out right. (that's what she said) Let me try again: Whenever someone says delivery drivers don't deserve our tips, I think of that evening. People say "I tip waitresses because they bring my food, refill my drinks, and do other things that drivers don't do!" And I think "AND THEY NEVER SEE YOUR DICK!"

Burger King Owes Me $2133.90

Here's one thing that I've noticed about fast food. Actually, this is one thing that I've noticed about every food establishment I've eaten at, from McDonalds to Les Halles, but--as the title clearly states--I most commonly see it in fast food establishments. This may be because I continue to be an unambitious economic under-performer who has spent more of his independent years subsisting on various dollar menus then he has asking the sommelier to give the '83 Lafite time to breathe, but at this point I'm into full fledged digression, so let's leave that topic for another day.

Back on point, one thing that I've found interesting is that menu prices change as economic factors do; a Big Mac doesn't cost now what it did, say 10 years ago. Or 5. One thing that HAS remained surprisingly consistent, however, is the price of tomatoes. Regardless of what, say, a Whopper has cost me over the past decade, Burger King has, in the same time span, always charged .30 for extra tomatoes. It's like how stuff on TV keeps getting sold at $19.99, no matter what happens with inflation; Whoppers go up, Whoppers come down, tomatoes hang tight at .30.

So here's where my (pun alert!) beef comes in: Suppose you go to Burger King right now and order a Whopper. Prices vary depending on where you live, but at the place down the road from me, you can have one for $3.49. Now suppose you really like tomatoes and want a couple extra on that bad boy. You can, as they say, "have it your way" for an extra .30. Awesome.

Now suppose you're like me, and you think tomatoes are nastier than a Dustin Diamond sex video. Suppose on the list of "things you'd like to eat", tomatoes come in somewhere between "Akebono's thong" and "your own tongue". So you ask for a Whopper with NO tomatoes. How much does your $3.49 Whopper cost THEN?

$3.49. You see where I'm going with this.

Places charge extra for certain things because of the associated cost with getting MORE of that thing. Tomatoes are historically expensive fruit (vegetables?) to procure, so charging extra for an extra helping is only fair. I don't begrudge them that. But I, who have never in my life partaken in a Burger King tomato, have saved the company literally thousands of dollars in associated cost by not having them on my sandwiches. If you charge extra to HAVE extra, shouldn't it stand to reason that you would get charged LESS for HAVING less? This happens to us everywhere we look: my own pizza joint has the usual "specialty" pizzas; supreme, taco, meat, etc. And if you order one with extra of something, there's an additional charge. Order one without something, and the price doesn't move. This, I don't mind saying, is part of the reason why I'm fairly convinced that I'm the only non-bastard on the face of the planet. I understand this slight!

So I've taken the liberty of making a few calculations, based on the (approximate) number of times I ordered Whoppers from Burger King before I stopped frequenting that establishment and extrapolated out the price of all those tomato portions I didn't eat. It comes to roughly $2133.90 and Burger King, I'm asking for a refund.

I realize that I'm the only one tilting at this particular windmill. But think of this: if I WASN'T the only one, this issue would suddenly cease to be so Quixotic. If we ALL complained about being charged for things we didn't buy, they'd stop doing it. So, in effect, I'm only tilting at a windmill because you aren't. I know, right? I just blew your mind all over your face.