Flip of the Coin
“Ohhhh man it’s a good one!” John, a delivery driver says, looking at the delivery screen.
“Yeah, right,” I say. Whenever John says that, it’s most likely in one of THE worst tip-zones in Normal - he just hopes that whenever he says that, someone will be like ‘Oh, I’ll take it!’.
He doesn’t have me fooled. I take a look at the address.
“Oh, yeah - hey it’s my delivery!” I say, eying the map. It’s one of the two trailer parks in Normal that we deliver to. Fantastic.
“Tell you what, let’s flip for it,” John says, taking out a quarter from his pocket.
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, it’s either that or Motel 6 is next,” He says, and sure enough when I glance at the screen, Mr. Motel-6 is next in line to be out the door.
“Heads you have to take the trailer park, tails I do,” John says; I nod in agreement. He flips the coin and catches it, flipping it over onto his wrist. “It’s heads!”
“Damn,” I say, grabbing up the pizzas.
“Don’t forget your quarter!” John says, tossing it to me. “It’s bad luck if I keep it.”
I pull into the trailer park and go straight to the back; I’ve never delivered to this part of the trailer park before, looks nicer than the other streets I’ve delivered to…
“Hello sir how are you doing tonight?” I ask the rhetorical question as the man answers the door.
“Oh just fine, what’s the total?” An elderly man answers the door decked out completely in Sean John wear. I look behind him - it doesn’t look like he lives in a trailer park - it looks like he lives in a beautiful house! Leather couches adorn the living room, complete with a HUGE wide-screen projector TV blasting a football game.
“Your total comes to 21 dollars,” I say. He hands me 25 bucks.
“Is that enough?” He asks.
“Well, sure it is…” I say, but he cuts across me.
“No, the correct answer is ‘my tip is not included’,” He says, laughing.
“Ah, of course sir,” I say, tucking the money into my pocket.
“Hey, do you guys still have to light those gas ovens?” He asks eagerly.
“Ummm…no, I think they are electric?” I say tentatively.
“My husband used to deliver for Dominos a LONG time ago,” I hear the man’s wife call from inside, “Greg get back in here already!”
“So do you guys still have to light the mini ovens to heat the bags?” The elderly man asks, ignoring his wife. He fishes out 5 dollars and hands it to me, winking, “So is that enough now?”
“Yes, sir!” I say, laughing, “And no, we don’t have to light the mini ovens to heat the bags - they have electronic plates in them that allows the ovens to heat the plate, and then the bag tells the machine when it is ready to be delivered and it beeps.”
“Wow, really,” He says, staring off into what I can only assume is memory lane. He pulls out another couple of dollars and hands it to me. “So they still have the huge map in there that you have to go and search for people’s homes?”
“Yes we have that, but the computer also has a mapping feature that can show you where the exact address is,” I say, and he hands me another dollar.
“GREG!” His wife calls again and then adds, jokingly, “Get back in here before you give the woman all of our life savings!”
“Of course honey,” He says, handing me another dollar. I can hear the wife chuckling at her own private joke.
“I hope that’s enough now,” Greg says, whispering to me.
“Thank you very much sir!” I say, making off with almost 10 dollars in tips from this one guy.
When I got back to the Dominos, I toss the coin to John.
“I think you’ll be needing that coin now,” I say, laughing.