Everyone loves having things delivered. What do you mean I don't have to leave my house and people will just bring me stuff? Sign me up!
But imagine, if you will, being on the other side of that transaction. Going to strangers houses all over the place never quite sure what you are going to find when you get there...
That's what we were interested in. So we took to the internet and asked delivery drivers what was the sketchiest deliveries they ever made, and this is what they told us.
39. What we have here is a failure on the part of the parents
I was delivering chicken and my worst stop was pathetic, really.
I knock on the door, I hear a kid yell "I GOT IT", he opens the door, and runs up the stairs yelling to his friends "The chicken idiot's here! The chicken idiot's here!!" After which a crowd of about 8 pre-teens at the top of the stairs starts throwing change down the stairs at me to pay for the delivery.
I asked if they could hand me the money, they laugh and just throw the quarters/dimes/etc. harder.
So I picked up the bag of food, winged it up the stairs at them, it hit the wall, and I split.
Told the boss what happened and if they call to complain I won't listen or apologize; I'll just quit if he brings it up. I found out later he did get a call and told them to get stuffed.
Good boss.
38. Possession of counterfeit United States bill is punishable by a fine of up to $15,000, or 15 years imprisonment, or both.
It was outside of town on a dirt road with tall trees. Every “house” was basically just plywood shacks. There were broken down cars and trash everywhere. The entire neighborhood just reeked of a b rated horror film. I find the right house and walk up to the “door” but it was just a blanket so I had to yell “Pizza!” They come to the door and grumbled. It was a haggard looking man wearing boxers and a dirty white tank.
Something felt wrong as he handed me a bill that looked washed. I held the $100, with old Ben Franklin’s face on it, up to the light and could clearly see Abe Lincoln in the paper. They had ordered around $50 worth of pizza and wanted change. He tried convincing me that he went to the bank and they gave him that bill. I asked him why then the wrong face was on there and he said that’s how they do it. I said hell no and drove away as fast as I could. We stopped taking orders that don’t have street roads.
37. Someone has been studying their horror film tropes
I didn’t end up delivering the pizza but the address was an abandoned house. It was around dusk and the house was so obviously uninhabited, I could see trees growing through the windows and the backside of the house was crumbling so badly I could see to the backyard from the street. The instructions were to “come around back”. I double checked the address after locking my doors called the customer a couple of times, called the store and told em what was up and why I wasn’t delivering the pizza and headed out. I mean seriously who would have been dumb enough to go to the back of that house?
36. The story gets sadder the longer it goes on
First time to a huge mansion that was renowned for big tips, where you had to go around the back to a gate leading to the pool patio. Guy who answered the gate doorbell had been disfigured in some horrible accident. He had me wait while he got his wallet, so I got a good dose of the backyard where a raging party was going on. Craziness in the pool, bottles everywhere, and it was like midday on a Wednesday.
Guy finally comes back, addresses me by name and says “you don’t remember me, do you?” Knowing that I’d remember those injuries, I realized he must know me from before he got hurt, and I stammered out a weak “no, I don’t?” His response blew me away - he recalled being in first grade with me at a local Catholic school I attended for one year. Then, he went on to detail everything about class that year, the people, teachers, activities and that his accident had happened during the following summer - he’d gone through a windshield in a head-on with a semi.
I delivered there a few more times and hung out chatting with him as long as I could. It slowly became clear that the party crowd was just using him for his money. That was screwed up enough, but what I also eventually realized was that he was stuck in that last normal year he’d lived and, 20 years later, had moved back as soon as he was old enough to access the accident settlement. And the money was going up that crowd’s nose pretty fast.
I had no idea how to help him or even if he wanted help, and eventually started letting other drivers take that run. I never saw him again, even though it’s a small town. Eventually, he stopped ordering pizza and then I left for a job elsewhere but would pass by his house when visiting while my parents still lived there. Fewer and fewer cars were parked out front every time I went by, and the house slowly became overgrown with ivy.
35. You never know what you're gonna get
Used to deliver part-time in a not so nice part of town. Used to do a regular delivery to an adult book store, my 18-year-old mind was blown the first time I went in & saw all the adult toys & things hanging on the walls. Another time I delivered to a room at a hot sheet motel. Dude opened the door & while he was counting out the money I saw a naked woman sit up in the bed behind him.
34. People are crazy, man
I worked at Domino's and we had to blacklist a guy because he was obsessed with me. He would come in and ask if I was there. If I wasn't working that day he would just show up the next. If I was on a delivery, he'd wait around in the store for me. He would tell me that he loved me and ask me out on dates. He was an addict and it was very obvious. The last time I delivered to his house, he ordered about $40 worth of food and drinks and kept trying to hand me $100 even though I told him numerous times I didn't have the change. He apparently stole his grandma's cell phone and wouldn't give it back and he and his cousin were screaming at each other the whole time I'm waiting to get the smaller bills he kept telling me he had. He had nothing smaller than a $100 and he kept arguing with me because he changed his mind and just wanted 1 pizza and a drink and I told him I couldn't do that.
Pixabay
33. If you take it out of the box it loses its value
I delivered in a couple of different college towns in Oregon. There's a lot of substance abuse and poverty here, not unlike a lot of rural areas in America these days. Granted this was decades ago, but there was a surprising amount, actually. There was always that “pathway” leading in (never went in) to the dens and there was almost always an animal or two as well, which always bummed me out.
The smell isn’t always what you’d expect, more like an old thrift store book x1000 mixed with sweat and animal excrement/urine. That kind of smell it takes years of direct exposure to get used to. I’d prefer living next to a paper mill again over that.
One that really blew my mind was an “upscale hoarder”. Everything was new and still in packages, just piled from floor to ceiling. Kids clothes, musical instruments, tools, you name it.
I’ve honestly seen some pretty bad houses as a building envelope inspector. Not really hoards, but just horribly disgusting and filthy environments.
I don’t mean to judge, but I just don’t understand how folks can live that way.
32. Hot tip: Don't play with fire
When I was in college I delivered pizzas, and I once stopped at a delivery and noticed that the neighbor's house was about to be on fire.
I say “about” because the fence attached to the house was in flames, and it was up against the house. The flames were licking the eves.
I ran up to the front door and rang the doorbell, knocked, yelled... nothing. I called the fire department. Then, I ran to the house next door, pulled off their hose, ran to the other side of the house on fire, attached it, and started spraying the fire.
I had most of it out when the fire department arrived, and they finished the job.
As they were spraying it down, a 20-year-old girl comes out of the house with two 13/14-year-old girls. Apparently, the 20-year-old was babysitting the younger ones and was scared to open the door. Earlier that night, the two younger girls had broken up with their boyfriends and, with the babysitter's help, set fire to pictures of their ex-boyfriends and threw them in the trashcan outside. The trashcan just happened to be up against the wood fence that was up against the house.
I delivered the pizza next door and went on with my shift. A week later, their parents stopped by the store looking for me and gave me a $50 gift card to a local mall to say thank you for saving their kids from a fiery inferno of death.
The babysitter got fired.
Pixabay
31. You know how it goes, anything for $6
Delivered pizza for about 2 months. I got an address I have never even heard of. It was beyond town and up the hill. Never been here and my GPS ain't making sense. House on the right but all I see is a mailbox and big tree. I had to turn my car sideways of the road to high beam what was behind the tree. I see a small house, pretty sure it was a 1 bedroom. Thought to myself carrying 2 large why would a tree be in front of the house.
Anyways I knocked on the door and a nice blonde lady opened it. Told her I have her pizza. She told me to put the two pizza on a small counter while she gets change. It was like a small table counter where you can put your keys when you walk in the house. I thought to myself it is only 3 feet away, max. Plus the door is wide open.
So as I came in I put the 2 large pizza on the counter. As I put the pizza on the counter I saw the lady looking in her purse for change. Nothing to it, as I watch her get money. Suddenly the door slams behind me! A child, maybe around 2 or 3 years old was in front of the door. All I remember the back of my hair stood up as this little boy was looking at me with an eye patch. I can remember my hair standing up, but my butt cheeks was tightening. Like pulsing. Then he touched my shoulder and said he had pink eye. OK! Pat the kid in the head and left. As I was leaving my car scraped the sidewalk, but I got a 6$ tip.
30. Remember the raptors in Jurassic Park? That's basically what a turkey is
One time I had to deliver to a farm and when I got out of my car a turkey approached me, and turkeys have sharp talons so I wasn't about to play that game. I got back in my car and called the customer.
They said it was their PET, and was harmless.
I got back out of my car to deliver the pizza and this bird followed me all the way to the house gobbling and nibbling my jeans.
Ended up being fine though, the customers were super nice and tipped me like 40% and the turkey didn't hurt me or rip my jeans from nibbling too hard so.
Pixabay
29. Party on, dude
We had a regular that was saved on the computer as mike from around the corner. Whenever I delivered he was super messed up. On more than one occasion I had to let myself in because he was playing his drum set with his headphones on or completely hammered. One time he was passed out and drooling on the coffee table. Called the cops but he was ok. I saw him a year later at his day job and he didn’t even know who I was. Was never sober when we delivered.
28. Better watch out if he always paid in cash
I used to deliver to a guys house, nice place, a wall of 20+ foot trees to hide the house, two Mercedes in the driveway always a good tipper. His house got raided by the feds and they took all his stuff. Somehow he continued to order like clockwork every week. No idea how he didn’t go to jail...
Weird side note, this guy always would answer the door stinking like green stuff even after the arrest and he has these weird female mannequins with designer clothes on them all over the house.. like when you pull up it looks like he’s having a party but it’s actually Home Alone deja vu and there are weird mannequins everywhere...
Other than that just your typical rednecks, houses full of trash, people clearly stoned and people coming to the door half-naked, those mannequins stuck out to me and I’ll never forget that weird dude.
27. First rule of delivery is "Don't go in the person's house" Come on guys
Delivered pizza for a while in high school and college. Never anything too sketchy. Use to deliver all the time to a sex offender, I never felt too threatened as an 18-year-old, but the guy gave me the absolute creeps. He lived in a tiny condo linoleum floors and cheap furniture like he had the same everything since the 70s. He would have me bring the pizza in and close the door behind me. There were a few seconds I’d be putting the pizza down with my back to him. It sounds rather mundane typing it out but I can’t really think of another time being around another person and being so absolutely creeped out. I never knew the exact details of his crimes but the implication was kids. It sounds wrong to say but I feel like even if I wasn’t told before the first delivery, I still would have come back to the shop and said that he probably has a kids head in his freezer.
26. Ok, I believe you
I delivered in college and in this town there was a huge complex of different prisons and mental hospitals, I think the hospitals have since closed but it was so depressing going in them as people are moaning, screaming for no apparent reason, it smells like excrement.
And then there's the prison I had to go to sometimes. I had to buzz my way in this double fence gate across a yard from the prison building with cell windows facing me. I had an entire 3-4 story wall of prisoners yelling at me to scare me. Even though I knew they were locked up I was a kid pretty much and their tactics absolutely worked. I also almost got shot by a guard there who didn't believe I was there to deliver and thought I was trying to help someone escape.
They should at least come out of the prison to get the pizza but yeah I promise I'm not lying.
25. Mud Boys represent
When I was in college back in north Florida I worked for a local pizza joint that was the only one open until 3 am which meant I witnessed quite a few odd events over my time there from women flashing the older driver for free pizza to two homeless guys fighting in the parking lot out front.
The best though had to be one late evening when I got a delivery to the outskirts of town way out in the boondocks. You can imagine how backwater the outskirts of town in north Florida can be but I never would have expected what I would come upon. I arrived at the house at about 1:30am with directions to drive the car up the drive around back and as I did i saw what appeared to be 8 shirtless grown men covered head to toe in mud, dancing around a massive bonfire next to a giant 4x8 plank of plywood with giant red letters painted on it that read “MUD BOYS”.
I instantly thought of peeling out of there but before I could react the group saw me and immediately rushed the vehicle. Now imagine 8 grown country men covered in mud charging your car at 2am with a flaming inferno behind them, I nearly pooped myself. As I cracked the window the guys were actually quite cheery, hammered, but cheery. They were so excited for pizza that I’m not even certain they remember tipping me $20 or the three drinks they threw in the back of my car but to this day I will never forget the Mud Boys.
24. You may have met a witch
Drove for Dominos in college and had to deliver to a house in a bad part of town. There were no lights on at all outside and the grass looked like it hadn’t been cut in months. I have to use my phone flashlight to find my way to the door. I knock and this elderly woman answers wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt. She had one eye that was good and one that was completely glazed over. She never said a word and kept eye contact with me the entire time that she fumbled through her wallet (to give me exact change, ugh).
Meanwhile inside there is a very large man and a little kid. They were both only wearing boxers and the kid kept trying to run up to help the woman with the sodas and pizza and the guy kept yelling to sit his butt down. All the while this woman is silent and staring into my soul. I wish I could say it was a one time deal, but no. I delivered there a few more times after that and it was the exact same drill every time. It just felt like something from the twilight zone.
Neither the woman nor the child had any sort of bruises, cuts, or markings to show there was physical abuse. The woman’s eye seemed like it had been that way for a while and it didn’t strike me as a possible abuse injury at the time. I was an exhausted college student working the closing shift and I was just trying to get in and get out so I could make more deliveries.
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23. That's sketchy
GPS led me to my city's hospital. After getting directions from a lot of employees I finally found the room. I'll admit now, I really should've paid more attention to the signs but was in rush and didn't bother. Luckily there was a nurse already in this lady's room. I was was just going to walk in and drop food off when the nurse starts shaking her hands and rushes to me. "No, no, no, you can't come in here. This is isolation"
"Oh I'm sorry, she ordered a delivery"
She went back into the room and asked the lady if she ordered delivery and I heard the lady say yes. I overheard the nurse tell her "You should've told me."
The nurse comes back to me to grab food and told me if I had walked in the room I was not be let back out or something along those lines.
Threw me for a loop. Told her I will pay more attention now. I promise.
22. Where were these nice old people giving away money when I was running deliveries
This always makes me laugh when I think back to it. I delivered pizza to a house where an older guy walks out in a robe sorta mumbling, I hand him the food he hands me a 20, I tell him it's 24. He mumbles ok and waddles back into the house, comes back and hands me another 20. I go to my pocket to get change and he slams the door on me.
I also once delivered to an older woman who tells me to come in the side door. The food is about $34 and she hands me what I think is 40 and is really sweet, asking me how I'm doing and all that. I get back into my car and realize it's actually $60 and 2 of the 20s were sorta stuck together. I go back into her house to let her know and she says "oh I know, it's for gas and whatever else you might need." I always remember that lady because it was just such a random nice thing to do and really made my day.
21. Honestly, $50 is a small price to pay for screwing up so bad as a parent you think sending your kid to be beaten up by a bouncer is going to "fix" them
At the mouth of Provo Canyon on the way down from Sundance and Heber City, UT, there was a compound that housed a school for teenagers who rebelled. We're talking kids that screwed up and their Mormon parents sent them from all over the country to this hard-nosed place to "fix" them.
I'd have to deliver there about once a month. Parents would feel guilty and send their kid a pizza, paid for with a credit card. The kids, hating their parents, would often put like a $50 tip onto a $15 pizza (this was from 1997-2002 when I worked there). After a while, the store manager made it a rule that any tip had to be okayed by the parents placing the order because he'd gotten too many irate parents about their kids' tip amounts.
Anyhow, you had to get buzzed into the main room through this set of double security doors. The guys that worked there were all like 6'2" and 250 and ripped. One time, I go in with like 10 pizzas for the entire group, and one of the guys says, "ALL OF YOU GET BACK AWAY FROM THE DOOR!" He looks at me and tells me to move toward the door. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. All of a sudden, like three of the kids attack this dude, and they screwed up. This dude was some kind of Chuck Norris prodigy. They took swings at him with objects from the room (like chairs) and he just blocked them with his arms until he could punch back, and he dropped all three of them with shots to the chest, hitting them so hard that they couldn't breathe anymore.
I stood there and blinked while he restored calm, telling them, "We didn't need this, guys" and "I don't like doing this, but you attacked me. I'm here to help you, but if you use violence to get what you want, you'll have a very tough time here. I'm choosing to not call the police over this." I got out of there as fast as I could.
Anyway, the place was messed up because of the violence and the whole concept of private jails for kids.
20. Maybe don't deliver to the middle of a field in the middle of the night if you don't wanna die
One night I have a delivery to a pretty rural area. A lot of my deliveries are to rural areas, so no big deal. But tonight it's drizzling and especially dark, so I'm having trouble finding the address of the house I'm looking for. So I roll down the passenger window and use my flashlight, pointing it at mailboxes/trees/posts/ anything that somebody might have their address on at the end of their driveway. So I'm driving along at like five miles an hour pointing my flashlight when the beam catches a guy wearing a black hoodie at the end of an obviously long gravel road staring directly. At. Me.
More of a glare at me, really. But whatever, could just be on the phone or something. Then it gets weirder. I finally find the address I'm looking for and pull into the drive, and hop out of the car. That's when I get the sinking feeling. No cars, no house light, boarded up windows. If you've ever been a delivery person, you know that this is the time to get out of there because you're about to get robbed. Right as I'm about to jump in, throw the car into reverse and nope out of there, I see a man walking across the empty field adjacent to the property towards me.
Now I'm a pretty burly, bearded dude, so I don't worry a whole lot on deliveries, but this scared me. When he gets closer, I see him very obviously tucking something into his waistband, what I can only assume was a gun. He then says in a thick, menacing southern accent "I thought you was the law" (I guess because of how I was scanning the addresses). I meekly point to my car topper and the pizza in my hand and he says in the nicest voice you've ever heard "Oh, great! Thank you so much! Have a great night!" Pays me, and proceeds to walk back through the open field, in the direction of no buildings, in the rain, with his pizza. For the rest of my shift I couldn't stop whispering "What just happened." Strangest thing that's ever happened to me.
19. Murder for a $30 meal? Sounds like an even trade to me
Once had a pair of regulars who tried to murder (or at least gravely injure) me for a free meal. This story takes a while, so bear with me.
For a while, I thought these guys were just two jerks who hated tipping. They lived ~30 mins away from the restaurant (in NYC where there are more pizzerias than humans) and would abuse our "free delivery" policy to order a ton of food and tip <$2. Every time, one of these two miserable bastards would come to the door with a half-smirk on their face and have *exact* change to ensure an AWFUL tip.
Late one Tuesday night RIGHT before I was about to leave, we got an order to this address. I sighed and hopped in my car.
A half hour later, I pulled up to the place, took one step out of my car, and in the span of maybe two seconds realized a car (one of those Nissan fake sports cars) was FLYING directly at me down the street. I lunged out of the way and actually felt the car make contact with the edge of the heating case.
Halfway strewn to the ground, I dusted myself off, picked up my box and went up to the door. Jerk #1 opens the door and looks scared, then asks me what the total is and has to walk to the other room to "get the right amount of money" (remember these people always paid in EXACT change from the second I got to the door).
Then, he comes back to the door, and asks me if there's a way to lower the total to the meal because he didn't have enough cash to pay. I told him I couldn't accept anything that wasn't the full price. He mumbled some excuse to look for more money and came back with enough change for a SWEET $.75 tip on a $30 order.
Now, the fun part. I say good riddance at the door and go back to my car, still slightly shaken up from having nearly been killed minutes earlier (and *very* shaken up from getting shafted on that tip). As I circle around the front of my car, the SAME CAR from before takes ANOTHER run at me, again coming FULL speed and JUST missing me as I jumped back around the front of my car.
I nope out of there and quickly put my car in drive and back out towards the main road. As I circle around, I see the car that tried to kill me twice pull up slowly to the intersection. I make direct eye contact with the driver. It was jerk #2 from that same house I'd JUST dropped off food to. I'd delivered to him ~25 times, I knew his face.
So what'd I do?
Threw him the bird, drove back to the pizzeria, and quit.
18. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's wrong
A few years ago, I delivered to a house where the whole family was out front when I arrived. There was also a husky puppy, who got into something in the grass. The wife's response was to shake and yell at it. I put on a joking voice and said "Hey, you can't shake it out of the pup!", and the husband did some flex on me by saying "Thanks, but you deliver pizzas" and stiffed me.
I didn't tell anyone at work, and that night, around 2 am, I went back to the neighborhood, parked a little block away by a patch of woods, and to their backyard fence. Like I was thinking, it was left out back overnight, and this pup is just a couple months old. So I slipped through a gap because I can literally slide through any space as wide as my head, unhooked the puppy now waiting at the end of his tether in the yard, and got out silently.
I gave the puppy to a friend because she and her husband are unbelievably good people, and he's been such an amazing dog. His name is Chico. The family either didn't care or thought the pup got loose or something because I never heard from them at the store.
Maybe it was wrong of me, but I couldn't get the memory of her shaking and yelling at that pup, and I guess the story my parents told us of when they rescue-stole a dog put it all together.
I'd also like to tell ya'll that you should think harder than I do before doing stuff like this because just because something is right doesn't mean the law is on your side or can prevent you from getting shot. I have a bad habit of not letting injustices go, and sometimes all it leads to is a concussion and emergency clinic bill.
17. Yep, that's Montana for ya
I deliver for FedEx in a secluded part of Montana. During peak, FedEx drivers work absolutely ridiculous hours, usually 11-14 hours a day. It gets dark around 4 in the winter months. There was a particular house I'd never delivered to, this house was 11 miles off of the main highway. I was driving a box truck, basically a 3/4 ton pickup with a 20ft long box on the back and about 12 feet tall. It was around 830pm, so it had been dark for hours, I was used to being in secluded areas at such a late time and this was my second to last stop. There also wasn't service in this particular area.
So I'm cresting a small hill up to this house. I started to get a really weird feeling, this house was 3 miles from the nearest subdivision in an area surrounded by sand buttes. I pulled up to the house, backed up to their garage, the automatic light kicked on it was very bright and I couldn't see anything looking into this light. I continued on like any other stop, hopped in back of my box truck, found the package and just as I was going to close the door and hop out (I should Add that there is a door to access the box part of the truck right behind the driver seat but its been welded shut because usually, I have too many packages to even open it so I'm forced to exit the vehicle and walk around back to access packages) I see a figure standing just below the automatic garage light. The package I had was very light and small. This figure wasn't there when I'd backed up and got out, the wind was blowing and the people had wind chimes on their porch. It was a noisy night.
I said "Hey there" as I do to anyone... no reply. At this point, I'm exiting the vehicle and getting ready to hand the package to this figure, who at this point is no more than 12 ft away. As I turned around from closing and latching my cargo door, the figure was distinguishable as a middle-aged man with a long gray beard and tattoos on his face. Very scary looking individual. The guy never said a word to me, he grabbed the package from me with a straight face, flexing his jaw. I uneasily said, "Have a good night man" I turned and walked to the driver door. I always make sure to prepare my vehicle to exit the property because sometimes there are mean dogs I have to escape from.
As I got in my vehicle, I can still hear the wind chimes and the tree leaves rustling, I looked back in my mirror after closing my door and locking it, the automatic light turned off and the guy slowly disappeared into the darkness off the alley between his house and garage. There were no lights other than a red heat lamp in what appeared to be a chicken coop. I swear to you I've never felt so uneasy. This man was evil I could just feel it. I couldn't find anything on the guy the next day at the hub. There wasn't even a name on the package only the address. I've never delivered there since, and I know it might not sound that scary but after that, I refused to go out of neighborhoods and subdivisions after dark.
16. Never go into someone's "Cat House"
The worst delivery that I've ever had was a refrigerator to a rental. The delivery of the new fridge went well, and the rental was a decent place in the country. When we were done the customer says, "Ok, time for the next part, moving this old fridge to my place." Me and my coworker were both puzzled by this, as this wasn't in our instructions or on the bill. A call to the salesman confirmed that it was agreed that we would do this. So, we followed her to her place which is about 5 miles away.
When we get there we see a farmhouse and a trailer house surrounded by a chain link fence. Inside the fence was about 10 dogs of various sizes and breeds roaming and barking. The customer then tells us that the old fridge will be going into her "cat house", meaning the trailer. We head on over to the trailer while being followed by her barling and yipping dog pack and go into the cat house.
I can still remember opening that door and being greeted by the sight, and stench, of well over 20 cats that inhabited that trailer house. There was urine and poop everywhere. On the floor, on the counters, on the fridge, everwhere! In order to get the fridge into the house, we had to remove the door from the house as well as from the fridge. While moving it inside the customer was spraying wasp spray all around us to keep the yellow jackets at bay. We got everything swapped out and got out as fast as a delivery truck could go. Screw that place.
15. That escalated quickly
We delivered until 3 a.m. in my college town. Had a delivery off campus in the part of the neighborhood that didn't have many street lights. It was 2:00 a.m. I get to the door, and it's answered by these two huge guys. I hand them the receipt and ask them to sign it. While one guy is signing, the other is creepily hitting on me. Telling me my smile is cute (wasn't smiling), that I looked hot, asking me for my number.
I said no to giving out my number and he said, "Ah that's alright. I know where you work." I'm super creeped out, but I deal cause I need this freaking receipt. He asks if I'm single. I said sorry I'm taken. The other guy, still signing the receipt, is like, "Man, I don't care if you got a boyfriend or not" He then is holding my receipt hostage and they both step out of the doorway and start looking up and down the street for people that might be around.
THANK GOD there was a group of three people slightly down the street. It was seriously giving me the creeps and I was so sure I was about to get nabbed that I sprinted to my car and took off. They started chasing me, but I caught them off guard and the head start was enough. I never delivered there again. I still remember that address to this day, although I don't deliver or even live in that town anymore.
14. That cop knew what was up
I was a pizza guy in the late 90s. At the time, I was a big stoner. I lived with my parents, so I usually kept my stash with me so they wouldn't find it. So, I'm delivering one night with a half ounce in my pocket. It was triple bagged so no one would smell it. Pull up to this house and as soon as I get out of the car a German shepherd in the back yard starts going nuts. Barking, pawing at the fence, this dog didn't like me. I thought nothing of it, cause it wasn't the first mean dog I'd encountered while delivering. Knock on the door and a state trooper answers the door in his uniform. My heart immediately sinks and I'm terrified. I realize that's not just any dog, that's a K-9. But, the cop just rolls his eyes, pays for his pizza and I went on my way. I don't remember if he tipped.
13. Judging by my social media feed she's not the only one who thinks it's still the 1940's
I delivered subs, but one of our regular clients was an old lady in a nursing home who thought it was the 1940s or something.
She was super nice, but nobody would deliver to her because she would only tip you like 25 cents because again, she was living way in the past. But I loved to sit and talk with her so I always volunteered to do it. The nurses would pay the tip if they saw me but usually, I only got a quarter.
Her delusional state was heartbreaking, she was for the most part lucid aside from not realizing what year it was. She'd give me hair/makeup tips, LOVED to talk about men and always told me stories about her husband, but seemed unsure of where he was because she never mentioned him dying or if he visits.
12. Sorry man, Alex is dead
On my first day on the job, I had a delivery at a trailer park. I get to this guy's trailer and ring the doorbell. As soon as I rang it I heard a bunch of movement on the other side of the door, so I know he heard it. However, he didn't open the door. I stood there for about two minutes before ringing again. That only made the movement more frantic, but after another thirty seconds or so the door opens.
I can very clearly remember what I saw when the door opened. It was an older guy, maybe 50-60 years old, and he was quite large (fat kind of large, not muscle). He had on thigh-high black socks, boxers, and... that's it. He had paid with card, so I just needed a signature. He signed and I handed over the pizza. I noticed that he put $0 on the tip line and thought "oh well, no tip." A few minutes later and I was wishing that I was right about the tip.
After he signed I started to walk away but he told me to wait because he has a tip for me. I stay on the porch while he disappears inside. He was gone for almost five minutes, and I was considering telling him not to worry about it when he finally came back. In his hand, he had a stack of two-dollar bills. He very slowly took one off the stack and handed it to me. He took so long to extend his arm that I thought it was a strange joke. When I finally got ahold of the bill I thanked him and went to leave but he told me to wait... and then repeated the extraordinarily slow process with the next bill in the stack. And then the next, and the next, and the next. Five two-dollar bills in total, taking about three to five extremely uncomfortable minutes, during which he was staring at me intently.
As I was leaving he asked for my name and I told him it was Alex (which was a lie because this dude was weird as hell). After that our store occasionally got calls asking if Alex was working and when we said no the person would just hang up. I'm really glad I didn't give him my real name.
11. Wow, that's nuts
I was a delivery driver and was working a morning shift. Around 10:30 am I got a delivery to an apartment, everything seems legit since it’s day time and there are lots of people close by. I knocked on the door and after 30 seconds or so the door opened a few inches and the guy was behind the door so I only saw his face. Still didn’t think it was weird because people do that when they’re trying to restrain a dog. He asked me to put the pizza on the stove behind him, and he moved back so I could see it was right behind him. I hesitated a second and decided not to do it, told him I can’t enter homes but I don’t mind waiting until he’s ready to take the pizza. He asked again, said “it’s RIGHT there,” so I gave the same answer, really apologetic, but something wasn’t feeling right (I realize later it was how quiet it was, didn’t sound like there was an excited dog back there). So he opened the door wide open and was completely naked. And this guy was at least 60 years old and like 6 feet tall. I tried to hand him the pizza and gave him the total, averting my eyes the whole time. He wouldn’t give me the money. He kept asking me to repeat the total and moved into my line of vision. I just took a step back and looked straight up. Eventually, he gave me $25 and I got out of there.
Told everyone at the store, and for an $8 tip and a chance to deck the guy all the boys that worked there hoped he would order again. The next day he did! When the driver got back he said he had to wait at least 2 minutes and when the guy answered he was only wearing sweatpants, so he was sure he would do it again to a girl driver, so the guy got blacklisted.
10. Classic "I almost died, but my boss is upset I couldn't work the rest of the night" style of management
The most messed up delivery had to be when a woman answered with her huge beautiful Siamese cat. I love that breed, so I ask if I can pet him. She says yes, I bend down. The cat purrs, rubs against me, all the usual signs of liking it. So I stand up to finish giving this lady her pizza, the cat lunges and bites me above my right eye, and wraps all 4 limbs around my head. Panic! Freeze! What do I do?! What is going on?! Why isn’t this lady helping me???? I grab this demon cat from hell by the front legs and just rip him off of me. As I do my contact lens pops off. All I can think is that it’s eye skin coming off of my eyeball. I throw that cat down and just freak out at the amount of blood that starts pouring out of my gash. The woman brings me into her house and puts a towel on. I tell her she has to take me to the emergency room or call 911 as I can’t see to drive myself. After all, it was her cat who attacked me. She drives me to a minor ER place. I get stitches and a tetanus shot. She foots the bill. Never see her again. Boss wasn’t happy that I missed the rest of the night, or had another order in my car. Screw that cat.
9. Look mate, I get paid minimum wage plus like, maybe $3 in tips, I'm not coming in your house to help you with anything, sorry
I delivered pizza for 10 years of college (not a doctor).
I delivered 4 large pizzas to an apartment complex. The person that ordered gave us the door code, so we could just enter the building. I had never delivered to this address before, so I just walked up to the door and knocked as per usual. I just heard a muffled voice from inside the apartment say "come in the doors unlocked". Normally I would never go into someone's house, but it sounded like an old lady, so I entered. What I found inside was equal parts shocking and sad.
The woman was lying back in a recliner in the living room. It looked as though her body had fused with the fabric due to not moving for days at a time. If it wasn't apparent to me by the piles of empty soda bottles, take out containers, and pizza boxes that this woman was probably unable to get out of her recliner, the acrid smell that hit your face as you entered would have made it obvious.
She had me place the boxes of pizza on the armrest of the recliner. She also said that she had never seen me before and it was usually one of the other drivers that delivered her food. I was new to that store, so I had no idea what to expect there.
She signed the card receipt, and before I left, I asked if there was anything else I could do to help and she said that she dropped her phone after she made the call and asked if I could get it for her. I picked it up out of some nearby trash and gave it to her. As I left, I understood why she gave us her door code because there was no way she was getting up to buzz me in.
Another one that I still remember 10+ years later:
There was an elderly woman that ordered 4 medium pizzas and 5 or 6 2 liters of Pepsi every Friday. All the drivers fought over her order because she always tipped 5-10 bucks and it was super close to the store. She wasn't overweight or anything, so best we figured is she was old and just didn't want to lug all that soda home from the store. It was fairly common for elderly folks to order a bunch of pizza at once and just eat it over a few days.
One day I show up with all the food and she had a distressed look on her face. She said, "I hate to trouble you, but can you come in for a second...."
As I mentioned before we really weren't supposed to go into peoples homes, but she was familiar and super old. She continued: "My husband... he is on the floor..."
I didn't even know her husband was alive. I had never seen him before and I had delivered there like 10-15 times. My heart instantly started racing... Thinking I am going to literally see a dead body right now... I say "Ok... Sure.." and I walk inside.
Just to the left of the entryway, there is an elderly man slumped over in front of an automatic lifting recliner. She proceeds to say "My husband slipped out of his chair trying to get up and fell onto the floor. Can you help him back up into the chair?" at that moment I saw him sort of shift, so I knew he wasn't dead. A wave of relief washed over me, but at the same time, I was thinking to myself how would get this guy back into his chair. I could tell he was a stout guy at one point but was withered due to age.
I sort of squatted down and pushed his back forward, so I could get behind him. I put my arms under his armpits and joined my hands at his chest. As I began to lift he just started gasping and wheezing and it sounded like I was literally squeezing the soul out of his body. I hesitated at first for fear of injuring him but realized there was no way I was going to lift him any other way, so I just heaved and got him back up into his chair.
I asked the man if he was OK and he just looked at me. The woman paid and tipped me $15 bucks and I was headed for the door. As I was about to exit, the old man said: "Whoever said these are your golden years is full of it!" That was literally the only thing the guy said.
I sat in my car for a minute, just sort of bewildered at what just happened. I felt so bad and was still concerned. I had their phone number from the receipt and I called them on the way back to the store to ask the woman if he would be OK and if I needed to call an ambulance. She said, "Oh no honey, he will be alright." And that was that.
Those were probably the most memorable, but delivering pizza in a college town got kinda crazy with the hi-jinks. Once I auctioned off someone else's pizza to a crowd of people at bar close outside the apartment complex I was delivering to. I just told my manager the person came up and said they ordered it. I paid for the pizza and pocketed the other 30 bucks. We just redelivered another pizza to the correct guy.
8. Ugh, you can't unsee that
I used to drive for Papa John's. I have several stories.
So one day I ended up with this delivery on the evening shift, and it was after the dinner rush as far as I can recall. So things were quieter, and not as many people were out and about or on the roads. The customer lived kind of deep in this rundown neighborhood full of single-story houses, and when I arrived literally every single light on the house was off. I walked up to the door, figuring that I might as well ring the bell since they ordered it-- after all, maybe they were waiting on it anyway, right? Ring. Nothing. I waited a bit. Ring. Nothing. At this point, I figure they aren't there or are asleep. So I walk away from the door and was about to call my boss to relay that I might have to bring the pizza back when almost silently the front door opens up. It's literally so dark inside it's like a scene from a horror movie where you can't see anything at all. Two pale, stringy looking guys come out of the darkness without saying much of anything and pay me in cash for the pizza, then take it and quietly move back into the dark without ever turning on the lights. I left pretty quickly, as it freaked me out. Was I in any danger? I doubt it. But those guys were really creepy.
Another time, I had to deliver to this really crappy run down extended stay motel that I always hated going to, because it was literally the most dangerous place we delivered to. It was very late-- around 10:00 PM or 12:00 AM. I got out of my car, got the pizza from the trunk, and as I began to walk across the parking lot to the guy's room, I see that down at the far end of the parking lot are a very large crowd of people. From what I could tell, they looked like a gang or just a lot of rough people hanging around. I became nervous. After I gave the guy his pizza, I took my empty pizza bag and was walking back when I looked left and they were all (Keep in mind this was a crowd of 30 or so people) walking toward my direction. Not a single one of them was walking anywhere else. I very quickly cranked the car and got out of there before I had a chance to figure out what was going on, or if they were coming for me specifically.
Finally, I delivered to this old guy in the same run-down neighborhood as the first story. I'd had his house before I believe, and his deranged looking son was the one who usually answered the door. But this time I got Pops, and I'll never forget it. He opened the door shirtless, and I was immediately greeted with what looked like a surgical scar. Not too bad, right?
It was infested with what looked like warts or skin growths. I don't mean a few, either. It was absolutely covered in them-- to such a point where I can't think about it without getting sick. They were pale looking, but the color of rolled snot. It reminded me of the way sea life latches onto other creatures and grows. It was pretty scarring. He paid in cash, and I left as quickly as I could. I remember immediately hitting the hand sanitizer in my car and practically bathing in it.
Other than those, we had a few weirdos, but nothing too serious. There was a guy we delivered to whose nickname was "Captain Underpants" because he always answered the door in his underwear. Gross, but nothing that would mess you up.
It was an interesting job.
7. I'll never forget my first $100 tip
I’ve got a few good’n’s from my time spent serving our lovely streets in America delivering...
One of my first deliveries I had to deliver to a bunch of brand new apartment complexes. Super nice, super expensive. It took me forever to find because they had yet to be marked properly. Finally found it after like twenty minutes and super loud music playing and whatnot. It sounds like an absolute banger at 2 PM. Knock on the door and the guy answers, really nice and asked how much I wanted for my tip and I was like man I don’t think I can say how much I want and proceeds to try and give me $40 worth of weed. I told him I would if I could but I just started and didn’t wanna get in trouble, so he gives me $50 in cash instead on around $12 worth of pizza. I was pretty happy.
Delivered to a trashy hotel the next exit up and a lady of the night with massive melons answers, and tipped me $12 in all ones. She must’ve liked me because she asked for me a few times.
My first time ever in a gentleman's club was because of my delivery job. Seen it was for the club so I was like okay they’ll be outside. I get there and walk up the door and nobody is waiting, the bouncer opens the door and says it’s cold man, come on in, so I gladly did. I walk in and a cute Hispanic girl sees me with the pizza and just hops off this dude and comes over. Pulls a wad of cash out of her bikini top, counts out exact change, and then ten dollars in 1s. Told me she knows how it is living off tips, and that it’s easier for her because there are more horny people than hungry people. I delivered there multiple times afterward and always made good tips.
Delivered to a massive frat party right outside campus one day. They were actually pretty cool and tried to get me to pledge to em. I declined and explained I work full time and I take 18 hours of classes, so they just tipped me a drink and a few bucks.
We always had people calling outside the delivery range. We leave it up to drivers if it’s not too far but if they don’t say anything about a tip then we usually declined. Well, this dude (obviously hammered) calls us wanting to order like $100 of pizza and drinks and crap but lives like an hour away. It was pretty late but he told us he’d give a $50 tip to whoever delivered so we drew straws and away my friend went. He gets there and it’s a huge house having a big party. The people obviously had money. Big drive away, nice cars, the whole deal. The guy comes out and tries to give him $50 for the tip and his dad comes out and tells him it’s rude and he drove a long way. He breaks out two hundred dollar bills and tells him to keep the fifty. Buddy made $390 in tips that night.
6. That was unexpected
In high school I delivered pizza in a pretty bad part of town. One time I had a delivery to an apartment complex that was known for being really run down and infested with crime (it seemed like there was a shooting there every other week). I knocked on the door and a woman answered wearing an extremely short leather skirt, a bra, and high heels. Smoke drifted out of the open door, and it smelled like a kind of chemically smell that I can't really describe. I told her the price and she said "one second, sugar" and walked away.
I stood there for about two minutes until a giant of a guy finally came to the door. He was probably six and a half feet tall and had muscles like LeBron James on steroids. He had on a red bandana, red shoes, no shirt, and jeans that sagged, revealing red boxers. His entire torso was covered in tattoos, many of which appeared to be the same sequence of letters in different styles. I tell him the price and he pulls a huge roll of bills from his pocket. I'm talking like 3 inches in diameter; the guy took a few seconds to free the mass from his pocket. He takes a rubber band off of it and starts flipping through. He probably flipped through a few dozen hundreds before getting to the twenties. He pulled two twenties from the roll (the total was like $35) and hands them to me. I asked if he wanted change and he stared at me for about 30 seconds. I was about to repeat the question (even though he definitely heard me, considering we were about two feet apart and it was silent except for me talking) when he pulls another twenty from the roll and hands it to me. I look at him in disbelief for a second, and then thanked him and told him to have a good evening. He nodded, shut the door, and I heard about five locks being latched.
5. Stay sober
I Started a job delivering pizza for a local pizza joint for some extra cash. It was my first week at the job so I was still getting to grips with how they operated and their procedures and what not. I Ended up taking delivery in the middle of the day to a guy.
When I rocked up there was dayglo paint all across the letterbox and the outside of the house. Thought to myself "hmm, this is a little bit strange". Went and knocked on the door with the order only to have a middle-aged, shirtless hippy with a bung eye emerge. He looked flustered and slightly off-kilter, which should have been the first sign something was up. After telling him the cost of the pizza he began to run around erratically trying to find his wallet. I stood there for about 5 minutes, patiently waiting on the outside but wanting to get out of there on the inside. "Do you take eftpos" he says after finally finding his wallet. "Nah, just cash" I replied with a nervous tone. "Right, you'll need to take me to an atm then won't ya," he says and without he mustering up a reply he proceeds to jump into the front passenger's seat of my car and just sit there, waiting for me to drive him.
I didn't know what to do so I just nervously got in my car and proceeded to drive him to the nearest atm which was only two minutes up the road luckily. The reason for his erratic behavior soon revealed itself as he began to open up to me about how he "always believed in the healing nature of a strong dose of LSD better than any traditional medicine". "Oh boy what have I gotten myself into," I thought as I sped as fast as I could to the atm just wanting to get this guy out of my car as soon as possible.
We arrived at the atm in no time and he proceeds to jump out of the car and spends about 10 minutes just staring blankly at the atm, before finally putting his card in and withdrawing the money. I took his money, threw the pizza at him as fast as I could, jumped in my car and took off glad to be finally done with that situation.
When I arrived back at the shop, my boss pulls me aside with a confused look in her eye. "Did you just take the delivery to this address?" "yeah" I responded sheepishly. 'Cause the guy just called and said you've stolen his credit card and are planning to withdraw his life savings and run away with it"
"Jesus Christ" I thought to myself before the phone rang again. It was the gas station I had just been to where the guy had withdrawn the money from and they said: " yeah there is some guy here running around in a frenzy cause he is furious one of your drivers has apparently stolen his card". I never even touched his card and couldn't believe this was happening in my first week.
Luckily as I was explaining the situation to the gas station owner over the phone, as the guy as hooting and hollering in the background about how I stole his card and was gonna take his money and identity, the guy just stopped freaking out and sprinted off into the bushes never to be seen again.
And from that point onwards I always locked my car doors straight after getting out of my car.
4. Well that's ominous
So while I was an undergrad, I worked as a pizza delivery driver. I had a delivery to a dodgy part of town with a delicious pie. When I got within a couple of miles of the residence, a local sheriff's deputy got in front of me. We made all the same turns. Then as we got closer, another got in front of him and one behind me. I start freaking out a bit, but carry on.
Finally, we all get to the same residence which is totally surrounded by police in riot gear, guns drawn, all that jazz. I get out with my pizza and discover the house I'm supposed to deliver to is the one with SWAT out in front. One of the officers waves me off and says, "he's not gonna need that today" and they proceed to breach the door, to which I return to the car with a free pizza and get outta there.
They were added to our "Do not deliver" list but I don't think we ever heard from them again.
3. Even molemen like pizza
I once delivered to a guy living under a porch.
I drove up to the house. It's pitch black. No lights on. I look at the ticket and it says, "Use the back door." I go up the steps and no lights on. Nothing. Then I hear a voice from below me say, "Hey down here."
I look under the porch and there's a small door leading into what looked like a makeshift apartment. I had to actually crouch to get to it. Gave the guy the pizza and bounced right out of there.
2. If you are gonna kidnap someone, don't order delivery
So we had this massive sprawling apartment complex that we often had to deliver to, and all the drivers hated it. It had multiple apartment buildings with the same numbers, so it was awful to navigate through, but otherwise new and rather nice. One day, I got this delivery to a guy waaaaaaay in the back of the complex who we'll call Mr. White. I make my way back there, and as I climb up the stairs I hear this muffled sound coming from his room. I knock, and Mr. White opens the door looking like Mr. Rogers. He had a sweater and everything.
But as he's paying for the pizza, I keep hearing muffled, gagged sounding female screaming coming from inside his apartment. It did NOT sound like a TV. It sounded like a person. But this guy just kept on smiling as he paid, acting like nothing was wrong and not even trying to explain it away as "the TV" or anything. The dude was chill as ice. He finished paying and took the pizza, and I walked back down kind of wigging out over what I just heard. I couldn't be sure it was someone, but I hated to do nothing and someone die because of it. I called my boss on the way back, and he advised I call the police immediately. So I did.
They took my name, but I never heard anything about what happened or if the guy was actually doing anything to someone in there. But regardless, it freaked me out. Either I called the cops on an innocent customer, or I saved someone from a psychopath. I still think about that night to this day.
1. Obviously, this is just some rich guy messing with people for kicks, right?
Drove for a bit when things were rough. Day driving on weekdays meant there were only two of us, and we got mostly the business park lunches and the SAHM pool parties (and the latchkey kids after school snacks). There was some interesting stuff we ran into - brothels ran out of apartments, drug dens out of high-end hotels...but for the most part, it was seniors answering the door in boxers or tossing flyers on doors or dealing with snotty brats.
There was this one house, though, that made my heart stop every time it came up, which was thankfully rare. Call it instinct or energy or whatever, I hated that house. And because there were only two of us, and I was 20 years younger than the other guy, it was usually me.
It was the only house on a single lane road. To give you an idea of the dissonance here, the major road this little road was off of housed a new McMansion development within one mile, and a sleepy little 1950 style cookie cutter suburbia development a mile in the other direction. It'd be really easy to mistake this road for an access road, especially with how heavily overgrown that area had become.
Once you got on this little road, the first twenty feet or so seemed absolutely normal. It's after you turned the bend and the road turn to gravel that things went insane. We're talking the road lined with construction worker and Smokey the Bear cutouts wrapped in barbed wire and holding model rifles. Naked store mannequins covered in paintball splatter with BB guns tied to their hands and pointed at the road. Signs every five or ten feet "NO TRESPASSING" "PRIVATE PROPERTY" "CCTV RECORDING IN PROGRESS" "YOU ARE BEING WATCHED". This continued for the next mile, while I wondered if I should be calling my fiance and telling him I loved him, grateful that it was bright and sunny out.
So I get to the gate, and call the customer (which was the most normal part of this), tell him I'm outside, only be told to not approach the house under any circumstances and do not leave the vicinity of my car. Okay, dude. You know what? I'm intimidated. I'm a 24-year-old woman a mile into the woods at some psychos house-fort with crap reception on my phone just trying to deliver a pizza. So, I get out of my car, take out the pizza bag, and lean against the side of my car and hope that I'm not making the nightly news.
Out walks a guy who is dressed like he walked off a MIB film set, takes his pizza and wings, tips me 5 dollars, and instructs me how to turn my car around.
Would rather take the strippers 100 times over that house.
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