Keep in mind that I am still in quite a rotten mood and the plight of others is of no concern to me. In fact, it entertains me as you're about to see. I arrived at the complex which consisted of 2 buildings with 8 apartments each. One look at the numbers told me for each number, there was an "A" and a "B". The lady had told me apartment 4 leaving out the fact that there was a letter. It was time to guess. I put importance on guessing correctly, because I was scared enough of the crackhead I was SUPPOSED to be delivering too, I didn't want to encounter one that wasn't expecting anyone. I walked over to apartment 4B and prepared to knock on the door. I glanced towards apartment 4A and saw some corny "Welcome Friends" sign that looked like it had been clipped out of a magazine. In front of the door were 4 full trash bags sitting there looking pretty. I decided to start with 4A based on its shithead exterior, uh, decorations. This instinct proved to be right. I rang the doorbell and nothing happened for a minute so I thought I might have chosen wrong, or the doorbell didn't work. So I then knocked, and a minute later I hear someone approaching the door. This was where I got my first view (and hopefully last) of "The Slob" as I will refer to her from here on out. To describe The Slob is to describe a garbage dump on a bad day, and even that is being generous. The Slob stood about 5'10" 300 pounds, wore some sort of funny colored windbreaker and stretch pants that poor people find fashionable, scraggly brown-going-gray hair, big plastic glasses, teeth more brown than white, and a pungent odor that could make a Viking cry (quite a feat). After one second of seeing her, I wanted no more, but I would be seeing her for the next 1200 seconds (20 minutes). After the door opened, immediately The Slob plops down on the floor in the doorway, begins sobbing, and exclaims "Nobody cares anymore!" She was ugly, she smelled, but yet I knew instantly this was about to get entertaining and I should stick with it. She was sobbing for the duration of our conversation. After telling me a few more times that nobody cares anymore I asked her to identify those that don't care. She replied "They don't help me out, nobody is there for me and I don't know what to do. They yell at me because I won't get up and answer the door!" I was still confused because she didn't name who was treating her like this and there was nobody in her apartment to be yelling at her to get the door. Smoke a little more crack, lady. The Slob then began telling me how "they" have been doing this to her since she was 2 feet tall, and that her uncle helped her out a while back but won't anymore. At this point I start to fight the smirk that was coming over my face because if there's a good way to get killed, it's to laugh in the face of a crackhead lady that's freaking out. I asked again who "they" were and she said "They always yell at me and keep bullying me around, I just can't take it. How would you feel in my position?" A response to this formed in my head, which was the title of this column "Lady, I'm just the pizza guy... I don't have the answers to your problems" but I didn't say this because I thought it would jeopordize the longevity of our conversation. So I went with my classic nonchalant "I don't know." She begins to yell "I could really use some suggestions! After they do this to you over and over again you don't care about losing weight, you don't care about looking pretty (as if it were possible) you just don't care." I kept using the monotonous "yeah" technique to keep her talking plus it was the only thing I could say without laughing hysterically. My smirk I was fighting mutated into a full-blown grin that I had to combat. This was just too funny. Here I am holding her food in my bag that keeps it warm, she is crying her heart out to me and making no sense whatsoever, and I am just loving this because not only am I getting paid for it, I'm being entertained by it. I'm still not even sure of her predicament and motives for having a heart-to-heart with the teenage pizza guy but it's damn funny. She then starts telling me of her ailments, "They don't understand what it's like. I have no friends, no money and I have a bad back." She then tried pulling herself upright with the assistance of the door frame. Half-way up she slumped back down on her bean-bag chair of an ass and started crying harder" Oh, I can't even stand up!!!" My grin fought and kicked but I supressed it once again. I briefly considered helping her to stand up but didnt for two reasons (1.It was more fun to watch the eternal struggle. 2.If I helped her get up, I'd still be scrubbing myself to release the stench.) Once she got upright with all the grace of an elephant doing ballet, I thought she was going to pay me. I was growing tired of hearing about "they" and their vague atrocities. What happened next kept me there for another ten minutes. She stood up and said "They are nothing but bullies. They think it's so easy to get up and leave. What's wrong with this town. They gave me this..." She turned around and grabbed a letter and told me to read it. (Note: After all the events I have yet to describe, I ended up with the letter because I forgot to give it back unintentionally so I am able to type this word for word.) At the top in big bold letters it said "NOTICE TERMINATING TENANCY." It was a letter saying she had to leave by August 5th. The first paragraph talked about how The Slob hadn't "corrected the conditions described below by July 22nd" and when the man came for re-inspection, she wouldn't let him in. So then I got to the conditions that were described after the first inspection on July 15th. It goes like this:
This was just too much, I couldn't contain myself anymore and each sentence made it harder and harder not to laugh until I burst but I managed to keep it quiet enough so that she didn't hear it and I kept my huge smile hidden behind the letter. Why on Earth she would want me to read this is beyond me. I just got a texted tour of her apartment, and that was enough to make me want to get out of there. After I was finished reading, I offered a "Wow, that sucks." She further made her stupidity apparent by saying "I just don't get it. They want me out of here, I didn't do anything wrong, they are just big bullies." Was I the first person to have read this letter? If I wanted to be the asshole I was capable of being, I could have said "Can't you read you fucking dolt!?! Your house is a shithole and you smell like a New York subway train, they really couldn't have been more blatant. And by the way, I am STILL just the fucking pizza guy, I don't give a shit!" She asked me where she was going to go and what to do and I wanted to say "Sounds like the gutter is your best bet" but again with the getting killed thing, I held off. Another "I don't know" sufficed. After a little more incoherent rambling, she said "They took the energy right out of me." I thought I finally knew what she was talking about, that being they turned off her electricity because she didn't pay the bill. But, nope. Her next statement was by far the strangest thing she said the whole time. "Yeah, they took the energy right out of me. One night, I woke up down Main Street right out there. I had a big cut all the way across the back of my neck, they fixed it all up. They sucked the energy right out of me, the Energy Vampires." What...the...fuck...? Energy Vampires cut you open and took your energy? Right, then. At this point I had my biggest chuckle of my time with The Slob but I knew I had to get out of there before I became part of some recipe of hers called "Cream of Pizza Guy" (no, not that cream.) FINALLY she gets out her money from a paper pouch and gives me a 20. The total was $10.03 and I asked how much she wanted back and The Slob said all of it. There was no way I just listened to and took in the aroma and played psychiatrist for this bitch and didn't get a tip out of it. I gave her $9 back, but sorta forgot the change and she was too dumb to notice, so I at least got 97 cents out of it. As I reached in my bag for her food, I heard someone coming up behind me. I thought it might be the Energy Vampires back for more but it was none other than 2 police officers. Hell yeah, that was the only thing that could have made this experience complete was police involvement. Apparently, her neighbor had noticed that she was crying out to the pizza guy and causing problems like usual so he called in Menomonee Falls men in blue. My rescue was at hand. The lady cop walked up first and started asking The Slob how she was and such then looked over at me and I said "I'm just here to deliver food" in an I-did-nothing-wrong voice and even she almost laughed about it. The Slob then started ranting and crying again "They are treating me like garbage, they want me out, I can't even eat." As soon as she said that I reached in and said "Here's your food." The guy cop said "Well, eating will be a good start." The Slob then started filling them in on all the things that "they" have done to her. The guy cop said to me "We'll take it from here" so my crackhead encounter was forcibly over. I wasn't one step away when I let my laughter loose like the breaking of a dam and it flowed out for about the next hour. Once I reached my car was when I realized I still had her eviction letter so I celebrated by having a Swisher Sweet.
I returned to Marko's in an awesome mood and 97 cents richer. The grin on my face drew a probe from my boss as to what happened. I filled her in and said it's never been that bad before, she's never had a freakout like that on the delivery guy. She enjoyed a hearty laugh as well. My boss said "At least she was fully clothed. Once she came to the door wearing just a bedsheet, which was opened the wrong way. She's not one that you want to see naked." I shuddered, and she continued "At least she didn't make the money impossible to get. She's wrapped duct tape around all of it before so it doesn't fall out." When I told her The Slob was being evicted, she cheered, and we closed the restaurant.
I carry garlic in my pocket so the Energy Vampires don't fuck with me