I'm now into my 7th year in my career as a pizza transportation specialist. That's what us in the pizza industry like to call it, but the non-progressive, suppressive patriarch calls us... the pizza man. Just kidding, I'm just a dude in a car driving around pizza, I really don't give a fuck what you call us. It's just pizza.
I must consider myself one of the more lucky pizza guys in the U.S. I work for a great little pizza place owned by my Aunt, it's been the staple of this small middle class town for over 45 years. The people are overall great. Don't get me wrong though I've had more than my fair share of tongue lashings, crazy drunkards and heroin heads, pranks, it all comes with the job. You just got to take the good with the bad. If you can sit through the potheads cliched sermons on everyone being one and connected, they'll usually shell out a decent tip. Just nod and agree, nod and agree, throw in the occasional, "dude you are so right man." and you're golden. Chime in a little about how our government suppresses us through the manipulation of our money with big banks and sending us to war to fight for "the man" just so they can make a big bang on their buck... God damn those son's of bitches are getting to me.
Yes, my Wednesday and Friday nights can be quite entertaining. I spend it traveling to 20 to 30 different houses in a night; interacting with all different kinds of people in this small little town, and most of them are oddly connected in some way.
7 years as the pizza man and I'm now 25 years old. I'm doing decent for myself, I've been coaching youth basketball for 7 years as well, I got my marketing degree, I'm a certified drone pilot, and I'm currently working on another project that I think has great potential. I have a lot going on but I don't think I'll be leaving the pizza transportation industry. Even if they start delivering by drone you bet your sweet ass I'll fly them there.
The thing that gives me the most joy in this is the role that I now have in this community. Believe it or not it's more important than you think. The best part of my nights are seeing my regulars and hearing what they have to say about literally anything; for a small town where everyone knows everyone, people have a lot of differing views. Sometimes its just good old Bob spitting some gibberish nonsense about how he lived across the street from the Johnson family back in 68' and they had a kid who was a great little athlete and he had a friend, Pablo Sanchez, who was a good ball player and blah blah blahhh. Bob what the hell is the point man? It took me a while to really listen and understand what Bob was saying. Each time I came, I realized I was getting a history lesson about what life was like back in the day. A history lesson about the Johnson's who still live over on River St. and Pablo who lives just up the hill (obviously these aren't their real names but these are real people). It took a while for me to catch on that Pablo had switched governments and became a Pablita. All this going on in this small town and I get to see the dynamics of how it all went down. I get to see how some things never change and how somethings will never be the same. How we're all connected and where we try and break the chain.
I have earned the privilege in this town to not just be a pizza man, but to listen when someone wants to be heard, and to understand when someone wants to be understood. When you do those things you become closer and more connected and apart of a community.......
Son of a bitch..... those hippies were right.