Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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Anyone out there old enough to remember when radio speakers were in the dashboard? Nowadays, the speakers are all in the doors; I miss the dashboard days. I have one housing plan, Crybaby Condos, that complains about my music on Sunday mornings. Funny, I have it down pretty far on Sundays, and up much louder through the week, but since I am able to deliver a bit earlier through the week, they sleep through the noise. I'm sure no one realizes that, with the speakers in the doors, we have plastic bags and stacks of newspapers, and bagged newspapers ... and trash and even our pantlegs covering the speakers, so we have the volume up a bit louder than we might if we were just travelling along on a sunny day in an empty car. With that in mind: One Sunday morning, I pulled over in the tennis court parking lot in Crybaby Condos to grab the last bundles of newspapers from the bed of the truck and put them on the passenger seat. I turned my head-banging music that I play to keep me awake on Sunday mornings at the end of the longest day of the week WWAAAAAYY down so that I could barely hear it while I was standing right next to it. Being pulled over in the tennis court parking lot, I was in the smack-dab center of the plan - not really anywhere NEAR any of the houses. It was about 7am. I finished transferring papers around, and continued to deliver, pulling into each driveway, and backing out of each driveway ... a total of 38 driveways, (Great for the brakes, transmission and suspension). If you consider the loop of houses (looped around the tennis courts in the middle) like the face of a clock - I had left off at 3 O'clock and was delivering counter-clockwise. I got to the houses over at around 9 O'clock and was blocked in a driveway by a white van. I sat there for a few seconds, thinking she'd move. Instead, she got out of the van - I figured she wanted her paper ahead of time ( I hadn't seen from which house she came), or perhaps I'd missed her. As she got within about ten feet of my truck, she pointed her chubby finger and started screaming at me: "You and your loud unorthodox music!! Do you realize you wake up every person in this neighborhood with your radio at night? You have no consideration for anyone else, and if you blast it past my house again, I'll call the cops". She stomped back down the driveway with some sense of pride about her, got into her van, and drove back around to the 3 O'clock driveway where I'd delivered the last paper before I parked in the center of the plan to reload. I found it terribly amusing, that my music might sound a bit loud from the outside, but if her intention was to make sure her neighbors get to sleep in on Sunday morning, my advice would have been to NOT follow me around, get out of her van and SCREAM at me at 7am on a Sunday morning. When I noticed which driveway was hers, it all made sense. Each driveway has a front unit and a rear unit - she was living in the front unit, and a woman for whom I'd done some computer work in the past, lives in the rear unit. She had nothing nice to say about the woman in the front unit - said it was like living with a big sister who drew an imaginary line across the bedroom, "This half mine, that half yours... don't cross the line". She said if their cars were parked what looked to her like one foot on HER side of the driveway, she'd knock on the door and just start screaming for them to come out and move their car to their own side of the garage area. She is apparently just angry at the world, and looking for anyone on which to take it out. Wonder if the neighbors found her screaming more pleasant, or my head-banging, unorthodox music more pleasant that morning? Below is a Google Satellite view of Steeplechase Circle. Pinpoint A is the driveway at 3 o'clock, if you want to zoom in using the plus sign below the arrows, while keeping the pinpoint A in sight. You can hold down the left mouse button and drag the map around to keep the A centered. View Larger Map |