Delivery story 373 Adam writes: I've been a delivery driver for too long, almost ten years, and have seen it all. I'm used to getting stiffed, and it doesn't usually get to me unless it becomes a repeat thing with certain customers. This happened seven years ago, when I was a bit younger and had less of a conscious, and I'm not sure I'd do it again. I admit, what I did was wrong and sometimes I have felt guilty about this. Anyway, we had this older woman who lived in a nice house, with a pool, four nice cars and a hundred thousand dollar RV in the driveway. She use to order every weekend. Larger orders of upwards of $50 for many years. However, we were lucky to get 25 cents as a tip when making deliveries to the woman. Everybody hated that address. So, one day I'm out on a routine delivery, going up a steep hill behind a little old lady in her Cadillac. I notice something on her car's roof, and as we get to the top of the hill and around a curve, this items falls off and comes to rest off to the side of the road. I made note of it, and a few minutes later, on the way back from my run, I stopped to investigate what it was. Turns out it was a woman's purse with a lot of stuff in it. Dozens of store credit cards, a cell phone, checkbook, glasses, makeup, and even paperwork for the owner's upcoming open heart surgery in a few days. Plus about $20. When I got back to the store, I started going through it more carefully. There was kind of a hidden pocket inside that I unzipped to discover wads of cash. First I start pulling out $20's. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of them! Then the $50's start coming out. Followed by a couple $100's! By the time I'd counted it all up, I'd recovered $477. What a run! I was starting to think I needed to do the right thing and try to locate the owner. After all, that's quite a bit of money. So I dig deeper into the purse to try and find an ID. When I come up with one, I take a look, and to my surprise it's the name, address, and photo of the older lady who stiffed us all for so many years! Time to make up for all the stiffed deliveries, grandma! That day, I made $600 for the day after adding in my hourly wage and tips to the find! What a day! And for years after, the woman would continue to order and never tip. I always got a kick out of being so warmly welcomed into her living room while waiting to be paid, and the whole time she has no idea that the day she lost her purse, it was the peasant delivery guy standing in her living room that had been driving behind her and recovered the purse and her cash that day! I remember, I was in college at the time, and I tossed the rest of the purse and its belongings in my trunk where it rode around for six months before my father found it while loading something into my car. He asked whose it was, and I said it must have been somebody who left it in my car. Then he found the ID of a 65-year-old lady and I didn't really have an explanation as to why I would have been hanging out with a senior citizen. I'm amazed he didn't inquire more about my obvious BS. Anyway, he took it to the police station and said he'd found the purse on the side of a road or something. Nobody ever investigated into things. And to this day that was my highest ever paying shift while delivering pizza. We still deliver to the old bag, too. return to top