3/8 " French fries to be exact.
The woman who showed up at my door has a young girl's physique, a bright face and posture, firm uplifted chest and unrealistically thin hips, so let's say she is young. She was ill prepared without a cart. Once here, she called about accessing the building. She is a hustler. She said,
"I thought, hey, why not take advantage of this virus lockdown?"
I asked her dozens of questions about her experience outside, about her working, about this order. I kept thinking that I was holding her too long but she was willing to hang out awhile and talk, much longer than you would expect. Turns out she is all new to this, first night on the job. She couldn't answer simple questions like, "is this a large order?" It was a large order but she has no basis for comparison.
"Do you want to hear something strange and delightful?"
"Yes, of course."
"I walked down to Pure dispensary right over there (I point to Pure) to buy an ounce of pot. For a friend. He has a sensitive job. What a puss. Without knowing any prices, he gave me way more dinero than I need. So before walking to Pure I ordered a pizza to have delivered to Pure. For them. For the dispensary people. I was spending my friends money, what the heck. The pizza place is walking distance to the dispensary. Both are very close together.
I told the pizza place what I was up to. I asked them to hold back a bit, not to race, I'd like to meet the runner to give him a tip. She goes, "Oh, this is neighborhood connection?" Or something like that. I said, "Yes." She gave me a discount for it being a neighborhood thing. This is odd because I've been doing this for years with the hairdressing people and this is the first time I've heard about any neighborhood-deed type of discount. Then she said that I have history-purchase points. She gave me another discount based on my order fitting something they're offering that week. These discounts reduced the cost considerably that was run up fairly carelessly high. I never looked but it was about 30% on an order that amounted to about $75.00. I think. I ordered the largest pizza they make, a large salad for vegetarians, and two pints of homemade ice cream. It was a very nice little picnic and enough for a lot of people.
Back at the Pure dispensary, the manager urged me to the back where the product is. The business was empty. I don't know why he was so eager to process me. I told him I am waiting for pizza delivery, for you guys. He acted surprised and he said that he can bring the pizza guy back when he gets here.
Business is slow due to the Coronavirus shutdown. Now I am in the back central room and talking to an assigned bud-tender, I overhear the main guy say to someone in the previous adjoining room, "Is that cool, or what?" Then later again, "Is that cool, or what?" Suddenly the door swings open, the little pizza delivery man who looks like shrunken Jesus enters holding his large red pizza transfer bag, and a face mask fashioned from a folded red western-style handkerchief.
How Coloradan!
Along with the main guy and the second female worker, both came in from the front. Suddenly everyone was in the same spot.
The delivery guy knows I have a $10 for him. This is his dozen-th time doing this for me in other places. I am talking to him while a pizza leaves his hands, the main guy talks to the two working females and salad and ice cream pints and pizza box go floating through the air to the back room where customers never see an employee eating. I check out from Pure dispensary with my ounce. The girl says I have a discount based on time. And I have another based on the Easter holiday. "And you have another, oh look ... that's it ... you're covered. You're covered."
The main guy told her to give me whatever it was that I bought.
This is a first in history.
You don't go giving away full measured ounces of pot.
What, do you think pot grows on trees?
Do you think it can be treated like some kind of weed?
I think the value of the weed is $110.00
I think the value of the pizza/salad/ice cream is something like $75.00
I think that I paid about $50 for both of those things. See how the virus is eating our brains? We give away very large pizzas and fresh bags of pot all over the place up in here. It's interconnected.
"Well, Shelby, thank you for picking my groceries."
She acts embarrassed. She's just doing her new job of filling the cart with crap but she is saving me a world of trouble.
It's more than that actually. It's her car. Her insurance. Her parking. Back and forth, back and forth, backandforth in the store she put on miles for me walking filling my order, she checked out and bagged for me, she loaded up her vehicle for me, then drove her car here and parked it, for me. She was willing to run as many trips as necessary from her car to my apartment, but her first trip I gave her my cart. That's still two trips from her car to my apartment. Then unloading all that onto my kitchen floor.
Each little plastic vegetable bag was tied in a knot and each plastic grocery bag was tied in a knot. Knots all over the place.
Shelby did very well with my order.
King Soopers charges $10.00 per delivery. They're good enough to take orders four days in advance and keep it all straight. I have no idea how that $10.00 is distributed and neither does this driver. I have $10.00 in one pocket and $20.00 in the other. Which pocket I use depends on Shelby's answers. We talk a long time. I reach into the pocket with the $20.00 bill and give it to Shelby, one of Denver's newest cheerful hardworking embargo busting hustlers.
* load the shopping cart by shopping
* unload the cart at checkout and reload the cart.
* unload the cart into the trunk of the car
* drive to my place, park car, get entrance to my impenetrable fortress
* re-load a new cart to bring the groceries from the car up to the apartment
* unload the cart onto the apartment floor.
"I'll give you $10.00 to help me put this shit away."
"Sir, I gotta ... "
"Kidding!"
From my point of view that is $30.00 for the delivery and worth every cent.
No comments:
Post a Comment