Delivery story 249 Beep writes: I delivered pizza to a deaf couple tonight. Not hard-of-hearing. Completely deaf. I laughed at a comedian with cerebral palsy once; I think I atoned for that sin tonight. When I arrived at the door, she was standing out there waiting for me, waving both hands and barely managing to not fall off the steps of her trailer house. I've delivered to deaf people before. I waved a greeting, and handed her the boxed pizza. Big mistake. I turned to walk away, and the lady let out a shrill whoop that scared the crap out of me. She was looking at the pizza and she wasn't happy about what she saw. "Oowa boowaghna offnaf woulda obbbABABABABA OOOH!" she explained. She pointed at the pizza. "Oofnaf WHY oofnaf boooom!" It didn't make any more sense to me than it probably made to you just now, so I tried to ask her to slow down and work with me a little, in gestures, complimented with clear lip-speak. She was not to be consoled. She made a gesture with an open palm, facing me. "WHYYYYF." Five. "Oooobbaba." Then she snatched a five dollar bill out of my hand and pushed me backward off her porch steps. What the heck? I wasn't about to go after the crazy deaf woman and get my money back, so I went back to my car and resigned myself to explaining an unauthorized five dollar discount and dirt all over my butt. I drove off through the woods. Now, when I'm delivering pizza, I tend to zone out and go into a half-tranced state when I'm driving, especially when I'm going a long way on dark roads through the woods. It's a very relaxing job, really. Something in my backseat went berserk. My car has no inside lights of any kind, so while I was finding a place to pull over, I was forming awful images in my mind of what kind of woodland wildlife must have crawled into my car to be raising so much hell. Smashing around against the seats and the sides of the car, howling and making all sorts of awful noises. I was hoping for only a coon, but bracing myself for a bobcat. I finally came to a stop, jumped out of my car, and shone a flashlight into my seat. All the noise stopped. A sheepish-looking half-chihuahua mutt was sitting on my back seat looking at me like, "So, shall we continue?" Well gee, I thought, the loopy freak has a loopy freak dog that wants to go home with me. Forget that. I got back into my car and turned around, back toward the deaf woman's house. The dog went really nuts. By the time I pulled into her driveway, I was steering with one hand and holding the yapping rat in my other, football style. The deaf lady didn't say a word. return to top