The Crock Pot Versus the Microwave

Savings, October 2012 – January 2013: $18,402.33

Average savings per month: $4,600.58

Savings goal per month: $5,400.00

Missed goal: $3,197.68

Accounting for missed goal: unforeseen vet bills, insurance premiums, holiday travel

Accountability is key when you’re getting out of debt.  So, for the past few months I’ve been tracking our debt snowball goals versus our actual savings.  For the months of October 2012 through January 2013, we have saved $18,402.58.  That seems like a lot, but our goal had been more.  We missed the mark by about $3,200.  Ouch!  Here’s what happened, judging by our bank statements.

The Question of Why

One woman paid off Christmas layaway accounts for complete strangers.  What would you do if you had money instead of debt?

Getting out of debt is hard.  If it were easy, everyone would do it.  When my husband and I first started following the Dave Ramsey plan, I often heard him say that knowing whyyou’re getting out of debt is important.  I didn’t fully understand what he meant until recently.  For the first year that we followed the debt snowball plan, my husband and I were paying off debt to gain some peace and simplicity in our lives.  We didn’t really articulate this out loud to each other; it was more of a quiet understanding.  

The Thing That Couldn’t Die, Part 3: “I’m So Bored!”

Lindsay Lohan, in a still from Liz and Dick

When we first decided to get out of debt, I thought the hardest part would be finding enough extra money in the budget to actually put a dent in our student loans.  We always seemed to just break even with our income and expenditures, so I figured it was going to be tough finding more than maybe one or two hundred dollars to spare at the end of each month.  That certainly wasn’t going to get us out of $100K in student loan debt any time soon.

It turns out that finding extra money wasn’t that difficult.  Once we drew up our budget, got on the envelope system, and cut out most unnecessary spending, we found plenty of money to roll into our debt snowball.  When we paid off our car in only a few months, I felt like we were really on a roll.  And then, as we got to the bigger loans, the ones that were going to take more than just a few months to pay off, I realized I had been completely wrong about why getting out of debt is so difficult.  

It’s not the money.  It’s the sheer, unadulterated boredom.

The Thing That Couldn’t Die, Part 2: Why Pay Off Debt? (The Math)

Photo courtesy of stockfreeimages.com

Warning:  I am not a math nerd. I used Excel to help me calculate the figures below, and I compounded the interest monthly, rather than daily, so the calculations are approximate.  

I was recently involved in an internet discussion regarding paying down debt quickly.  I talked a little about my experience delivering pizza, and someone interjected with this argument:

Hey, I'm really really not being a jerk here okay?

But I just want to interject something. When I was finishing my private school in law (I went to two schools, the first one I hated, the second was more expensive but it was so much better), we had a lecture on the "practical side of life." What came out in this lecture was that since student loans were so low on interest it was at times better to invest your money than pay down your loans.

The Thing That Couldn't Die, Part 1

I’m starting a new series, in addition to the Pizza Diaries. This one will be entirely devoted to our debt pay-off. I think it’ll help me stay motivated. Enjoy! 

“Great was the curse laid upon it

Great was the evil power granted it

Buried for 400 years, it still lives

Stare into his eyes if you dare

For every woman that does 
Becomes a willing slave to
The thing that couldn't die

And every man becomes a monster

Greed had made them unearth a monstrous evil centuries old

Now they and they alone have to face the consequences…”

Did Sallie Mae exist in 1958, when they made The Thing That Couldn’t Die?  Whoever wrote that trailer seems to be sending them a message.  At any rate, take out the “400 years” part (my loans have been due for only about five), and you have what amounts to a perfect description of how I feel about my federal student loans.

The Pizza Diaries, Part 9: Reality Bites

I never told anyone at my day job about my pizza delivery gig.  I don’t think they would have understood my motives.  Most of my co-workers live high on the hog, and don’t seem to mind being in debt.  I work a few hours per week balancing the books of an attorney who’s been practicing for over thirty years.  When I see his credit card bills, it makes me cringe.  He basically spends $3,000 a month on crap, and he still has a huge mortgage on his home, even in his sixties.  A co-worker and her husband recently borrowed money from both of their parents for a down payment on a condo.  And yet another co-worker makes substantially less than everyone else in the office, but has a remarkable shoe collection nonetheless.  How could I possibly make these people understand my fear of bending over for Sallie Mae every month for the next twenty years or so?

Driving around under the dark cover of night had given me a false sense of security.  Leading a double life had been fairly easy up to that point.  I simply didn’t tell anyone about my night job, except a few people.  I sometimes worried about having to deliver to a co-worker’s house, but I told myself that if such an occasion should arise, I would find a way to trade deliveries with another driver.  Most of the people at work were off bread anyway (they’d all been reading that book Wheat Belly).  I knew I’d be safe, at least until the next diet craze stormed the office.

And then one particularly rainy night in March threw a monkey wrench in the works.  

The Pizza Diaries, Part 8: Auld Lang Sigh

Photo courtesy of stockfreeimages.com

In the world of pizza delivery, the holidays are a time of great generosity.  Deliveries are plentiful; tips, abundant.  Because of all the extra money I was earning, the temptation to overspend reared its ugly little head sometime in late December.  I had to constantly remind myself that all my tips were going toward my student loans.  

A little background: I love the holidays.  Some of my best childhood memories revolve around the period between Halloween and New Year’s.  I grew up in Chicago, and every Christmas, my family would go to my grandmother’s brick two-flat on the south side.  She always put up a small artificial tree on an end table between two lazy boy chairs.  One of the chairs had belonged to my grandfather, who died when I was two or three.  Blue lights and a few hand-made ornaments sparkled on the branches.  One year, my oldest sister couldn’t resist peeking at the presents that were stacked underneath the tree and around the end table.  She had been wanting Michael Jackson’s Bad album, and one of her presents was shaped suspiciously like a 33.  I remember feeling probably as excited as she did, eagerly anticipating the moment when she could finally unwrap it all the way and make things official.  The thing about growing up poor is that the holidays are the one time of year when it’s ok to fantasize about material riches.  It’s ok because you’re not asking your parents to provide you with the impractical; you’re asking Santa Claus.

The Pizza Diaries, Part 7: The Invisible Woman

No one really notices pizza delivery drivers.  There’s no reason to, I suppose.  During my time as a driver, deliveries were a cold affair.  I knocked on a door, a customer answered, and without so much as a “hi there,” handed me money and took the pizza.  Only the occasional customer penetrated my shell of invisibility.    

I remember one in particular.  He lived in a small bungalow shaded by olive trees and a few oaks.  I delivered to his house several times, and his German Shepherd always greeted me at the door.  I think he liked me because I was never afraid of his dog.  I have a Labrador of my own, and I can spot the difference between friendly, excited energy and lethal hostility.  Taz just wanted to be the first one to sniff the garlic and mozzarella.   

Any Given Sunday

I just tallied up the total extra income I earned last month from my second job.  A little over $800.  It’s not quite as much as I made delivering pizzas, but it will do.  The nature of my current moonlighting gig is much different than my pizzeria job.  With this new gig, I can mostly work from home and I charge a much higher hourly rate than I earned delivering pizzas.  But I work fewer hours, and I do not have a steady stream of work, so I have to deal more with monthly income fluctuations.  Since I work full-time during the week, I tend to complete the projects for my second job at night and on weekends.

In some ways, it’s harder than delivering pizzas. 

When I delivered pizza, I had a definite schedule, and therefore, I did not need to give myself a pep talk or find the motivation to do my work.  I simply went to work.  Now, I have the option to procrastinate on projects since I don’t have anyone looking over my shoulder.  My only responsibility is to get things done by their due dates.  How and when I accomplish this is entirely up to me. 

Now I am sitting here with two projects hanging over my head.  Both are due tomorrow and it will likely take about four hours total to complete them.  If I start now, I can be done while there is still daylight.  But finding the motivation to work on Sunday is kind of like watching PBS NewsHour.  I know it will make me a better person in the end, but I can think of a million better things I’d rather be doing.  

Music tends to motivate me, so what I’ve done is compile a playlist of songs about work.  Some of them (ok, most) have pretty bleak lyrics, but they’re still motivating because they’re catchy, honest, and written about people who probably have it a helluva lot worse than I do.  Here they are, enjoy!

Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford

She Works Hard for the Money by Donna Summer

9 to 5 by Dolly Parton

Working for the Man by Roy Orbison

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap by AC/DC (ok this one’s about a different sort of work, but I still like it)

Manic Monday by the Bangles

Take This Job and Shove It by Johnny Paycheck

Day Job by Oblivion

Daysleeper by R.E.M.

 

The Pizza Diaries, Part 5: One Drove Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

I previously mentioned that my marriage suffered from neglect during my days as a pizza delivery driver.  We suffered in other ways as well, from one complicating factor: my husband and I only own one car.

When we moved across the country about a year and a half ago, my husband and I decided to sell his car so we would have one less expense to worry about.  We owned a home, so we were going to have to make the mortgage payment on our old place and the rent payment on our new place, so we cut back on as many non-essentials as possible.

A few months after we moved, our home sold and we no longer had the mortgage payment to worry about.  But we decided to hold off on buying a second vehicle for a few reasons.  For starters, we wanted to make extra debt payments (although we had not yet adopted a strategic plan for doing this); we carpooled to work since my office was only a few blocks from his; and gas prices in our area are always high (about $4.50 right now).  So we figured we’d save a little money by sticking with one car as long as we could stand it.  Plus, my husband’s job pays for a free monthly train pass, and we live near a station, so if push comes to shove, he can always take public transportation for free.

When I took the pizza job, we had to get creative to remain a one-car couple.  We decided to still commute together in the morning, and then my husband would take the train home on the nights I had to deliver.  It sounded simple.  

It sure sounded simple.

But then, about a month after I started my moonlighting gig, my husband’s company moved five miles further north.  This meant we could no longer commute easily in the mornings.  Our area is densely populated and traffic is a nightmare, so an extra five miles in the morning would have added an hour onto our morning commute.  Neither one of us wanted that, so my husband found a company shuttle that would take him from our old work neighborhood to his new location.  This meant we had to get to work about a half an hour earlier, so he could still make it to work on time with the extra leg of his commute.  Most days it was doable, but there were a few occasions when he missed the shuttle and I had to lug him all the way to his job and get to my job later.  In a word, it sucked.

Also, as the evening wears on, the trains around here run at longer intervals.  So if he could not catch the 6pm train because he got stuck in a meeting, he would have to wait around another hour to make the next one.  And then he would have to hop on a light rail to our apartment, which was another 15 minutes.

Oh, and did I mention that I took the pizza job just as the rainy season was beginning?  So not only did my husband get stuck on public transportation many evenings, he had to walk from station to station soaking wet.  

Rainy nights also meant more pizza orders, which meant I would get home later than anticipated.  Oftentimes, I would come home to discover that my husband had not eaten anything since lunch because we were out of groceries, and he did not have a car to drive to the grocery store.  

On these nights, rather than waste another half an hour running to the grocery store and back, we would eat a ten-minute dinner using common household staples: scrambled eggs and toast, soup with grilled cheese, or oatmeal (maybe some protein powder sprinkled in it if we had any left).

Being a one-car couple also put a damper on both of our weekends.  I spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights delivering pizza, while my husband stayed at home with no car.  Most weekends, he would do housework and make a late dinner for both of us.  (The pizzeria closed at 10pm Sunday through Thursday, and 11pm on Saturdays and Sundays, so sometimes we ate dinner as late as 11:30pm.)

But even though it is extremely inconvenient at times, my husband and I have sort of fallen in love with only having one car.  Life is just simpler and more peaceful with fewer possessions to worry about.  And we figure that since we got through my pizza delivery gig with only one car, we can pretty much get through anything.  We are more efficient with our time now (i.e. we go to the grocery store every week or two rather than every other day) and we spend very little on transportation costs.  Our insurance premium is $150 per month and gas is less than $200 (since I stopped delivering pizza).  Because we no longer have a car payment, the only other costs we incur are oil changes and periodic maintenance.  

Some people think we’re crazy.  Mostly friends who always complain about being broke, but drive high-end cars with high-end payments.  When I told my family that we only drive one car, I think they all got the impression that we’re destitute.  Or cheap.  But many of them have declared bankruptcy, and not one of them has any sort of retirement plan, so what do I care what they think?

What my husband and I have learned from paying off debt is that it doesn’t happen by accident.  It will not happen without a plan.  It is a marathon, not a race, and sometimes we will have to get radical in order to stay on course.  If we sail past the finish line driving one car, that’s OK.  We want to finish together anyway.

Lawyers and Anxiety

I was talking with a lawyer friend of mine the other night who wanted some dating advice from me.  A woman on a dating site had messaged him asking my friend to tell her more about himself.  He called me in a panic.

“So tell her about yourself.  What’s the big deal?”

“Well, everything there is to know about me is in my profile.”

“Come on, I’ve seen your profile.  All it says is that you’re a lawyer and you like to watch sports.”

“Yeah, I know, what else is there to tell?”

“Well, what do you think about all day?  What new things do you want to try?  What do you think the meaning of life is?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.”

“Haven’t you ever read a book that’s completely out of the realm of what you would normally read?  Or listened to some world radio station at random just to see if you like it?”

“Why would I do that?”


I didn’t know how to respond.  On the one hand, I understood where he was coming from because I used to be him.  When I practiced law, I stopped reading books for pleasure altogether.  And as for music, the only kind I liked to listen to was anything that could put me to sleep at night the fastest.  (I had a hard time sleeping back then.) 

And on the other hand, I knew he needed a kick in the ass.  His lack of engagement with his own life is a classic sign of lawyer malaise/burnout.  So I told him I was going to send him an assignment.  I would send him a list of activities he could perform that might bring him enjoyment and teach him a little bit about himself. 

As I wrote the list, I started thinking more about my previous life as an attorney.  The tone in my friend’s voice revealed some universal truths about being a lawyer.  Lawyers are anxious about virtually every transaction that occurs in their lives (hence, my friend’s panic about the woman who messaged him) and lawyers tend to not cultivate their own personalities and lives since they are often so busy sorting out messes others have made with theirs.  This lack of engagement with one’s own life inevitably leads to more anxiety.  I’ll give you some examples from my own experience. 

When I practiced law, I remember procrastinating all the time.  I would put off writing a brief until the last minute because most of the time, the assignment was just so achingly boring that I had a hard time accepting the fact that I actually had to complete it.  A heavy cloud of deadlines constantly loomed over my head as a result, and a large knot took up residence in my stomach.  

I also had a hard time making decisions.  I would get a settlement offer from a prosecutor or from opposing counsel in a civil case, and my mind would run through every possible scenario for how things could turn out based on how I advised my client to proceed.  It paralyzed me because I could not stop running through these scenarios, even after my client made a decision and the matter was settled.  Settlement only provided more scenarios that involved claims of malpractice or regrets about not pushing the client’s luck at trial and possibly getting a better result.

Since I operated inside of an anxiety-ridden world at work, these same anxieties spilled over into my personal life, specifically finances.  I would pay my bills on time, but I had no plan for saving, for paying off my husband’s and my enormous student loan debt, or for saving up an emergency fund that would cover a few months of expenses in the event of an emergency. If I got a bonus at work or we ended up with more money than expected at the end of the month, we used the windfall to pay off our credit card balance, or some other expense would pop up seemingly out of nowhere.    

I got so used to consoling myself with new clothes, magazines, dinners out, even a new car.  I rationalized this behavior with the belief that if I could not enjoy what I did for most of my days, I would at least look good and be well entertained after hours.  I never wanted to budget because the thought of taking stock of my debt would only accentuate the fact that there was no way out of practicing law for the foreseeable future.  Not with student loan payments, car payments, and credit card payments to think about.

And then an amazing thing happened after I quit law.  Not right away, but soon afterward, I found myself feeling a bit more hopeful about my future.  At the end of the workday, I had time to think about what I wanted out of life and to make a plan for how to get there.  In my lawyering days, all I thought about after work was heading for the wine bottle when I walked in the door, or dreading the next morning when I would have to wake up and repeat the same miserable day over and over again.

I wonder to this day if there is a way I could have happily practiced law.  I don’t think there is.  I think if I had continued on the path I was going down, I would have become more and more disengaged with my own existence.  Maybe to the point where I would panic when someone asked me about myself because, like my friend who was emailed by a potential date the other night, I had nothing to say. 

These days, I still suffer from anxiety, but of a different variety.  Now I have many goals I would like to achieve and not enough time to reach them all.  Most of them have nothing to do with work.  I am reading again and enjoying music.  I don’t waste money anymore trying to console myself with material goods that are temporary and can never fill an emotional void.  I am finally dealing with my law school debt, a debt that will soon be a distant memory.  And I am confident that if someone asks me to talk about my life, I will actually have something to say.

Are you an anxiety-ridden attorney?  Do you find yourself disengaged with your life or do you think it's possible to find a good work-life balance while practicing law?

The Pizza Diaries, Part 3: Just the Facts

For those of you considering taking on a second job to eliminate debt faster, read on for some of my experiences with moonlighting.  

We’ll start with the positive.

1.  The money was terrific.  The area I delivered in happened to be quite wealthy, and the pizza was obscenely overpriced, so on average, I earned between $21-25 per hour.  My base pay was $8.50 per hour, plus $1.50 per delivery.  I would make about two deliveries per hour, and the minimum tip was usually $5.  If I had a big order, it was not unusual to earn $15.   My shifts were usually about three hours – longer if I had to close – so I ended up bringing home over $300 per week. 


2.  I had a lot of time to think.  Pizza delivery involved being in my car 80% of the time, so I had time to listen to podcasts and think about life, and where I want to be in five years.  I stuck mostly to financial podcasts (Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman, and Clark Howard), but I mixed in some podcasts by Alan Watts, one of my favorite philosophers.  I thought a lot about Buddhism actually, a religion I’ve always gravitated toward.  I am fascinated by the four noble truths, and I constantly strive to rid myself of unhealthy attachments.  I’m working on staying in that mindset.    

3.  I lost weight.  I would often forget to bring a snack to eat in between my day job and the pizza job, and then by the time I got home, I just wanted to eat dinner and go to bed, so I never really ate dessert.  Over the course of the 5-6 months I delivered, I lost about 5 pounds, which was a lot for me.

4.  I learned to be more efficient at my day job.  I had to be at the pizzeria on time for every shift, so I could never leave my day job later than 5:30.  This meant I had to finish all of my work in time to fly out the door in time to make my shift.  I found myself surfing the internet a lot less and finishing projects earlier than scheduled. 

5.  I was spending less money than ever before.  Because I worked so many hours during the week, I never had time to pick up takeout for dinner or to go shopping at all.  On the weekends, when I was home during the day, my husband and I had to catch up on household chores and we would have to get in some long workouts together since I didn’t have much time to workout during the week. 

6.  On average, during my pizza delivery career, our debt snowball payments were about $5,000 per month.  This sounds great, but I feel sick every time I think about how much money we could have socked away if we were not paying off debt with all of it.

And, the negative…..

1.  My self-esteem took a big plunge.  To be clear, I did not feel bad about myself for delivering pizza.  I felt bad about myself for sometimes enjoying it.  On more than one occasion, I caught myself laughing with one of the drivers about a particularly horrid customer (the guy with the bulging left eye who always smelled like cat pee) or humming while I swept the floor of the driver’s area before closing, and I would think there was something very wrong with me.  Was I in some sort of arrested development, unable to move on from the pure adolescent joy of goofing off at work and feeling pride in an honest night’s work?

In the end, I realized the answer to this question was no, I did not suffer from arrested development.  After I quit, I did not miss delivering pizzas at all.  Those nights when I enjoyed my work, I was simply living the way I always should – with the knowledge that it is possible to be happy, regardless of circumstance. 

2.  My marriage suffered from neglect.  I like to think of myself as a superwoman sometimes, but in reality, one simply can’t be in a million places at once.  Because of my hectic work schedule, my husband ended up doing all of the housework.  I felt guilty about this because normally, we each contribute as much as possible, which means I vacuum and clean the kitchen and bathroom, while he cooks and does the laundry.  I know it was really hard on him to work so many hours at work, and then come home and pick up the slack for me.  I don’t think I appreciated him as much as I could have for how well he kept the house without any help from me. 

As for our sex life?  My god, is that all you ever think about?

3.  I felt alone.  I didn’t tell a lot of people about my moonlighting gig.  The few people I did tell weren’t very supportive.  I think they were worried about me working too much, but I could have used more encouragement.

4.  I was exhausted.  Sometimes I could not find parking near my customer’s house or apartment, so I had to walk a few blocks to get to my destination.  On those occasions, I would have to remind myself how much bad karma I would reap if I simply left the pizza on the side of the road (so I would not be considered a thief), drove home, and went to bed.  A couple of times, I almost fell asleep while driving, which is extremely dangerous.

All in all, I ended up making a nice chunk of change, and I saved a lot of money from not having any time to shop or eat out.  But pizza delivery is not for the faint of heart.  It stripped me of my ego, my energy, and camaraderie with my fellow man.

In a lot of ways, it was like practicing law.

The Pizza Diaries, Part 2: What I Wouldn't Give for a Flux Capacitor

My first week as a pizza delivery driver, all I could think about was what I would do if I were ever invited into Doc Brown’s DeLorean.  I guess the first thing I would do is pay a visit to my twenty-six year-old self and beat the shit out of me with my LSAT study guide.  And then I’d rip up my Grad Plus Loan application. 

But according to the most senior driver at the pizzeria, I was supremely lucky. 

Drivers at Papa John’s have to make pizzas and wash dishes in between deliveries, "Reed" informed me.   At the local mom-and-pop pizzeria we worked for, on the other hand, drivers basically just sat around during slow periods.

“Reed” had worked at Papa John’s for a number of years, and held a bit of a grudge from what I gathered.  Maybe his bitterness stemmed from the time he had to wait for a seventy-five year-old naked woman (with some hygiene deficiencies) to sign her credit card slip before he could escape to the welcoming bosom of his rusted-out, Clinton-era Corolla.  Or maybe it started the afternoon he had to watch the first-in delivery driver scamper away with four separate deliveries while Reed stared dejectedly at the blank order screen in the kitchen’s expediting area.  A blank screen is the bane of every driver’s existence.  A blank screen equals no pending orders equals no hope.

“There’s not even an industry term for taking four deliveries at one time.  I guess you’d have to say he took two doubles.” 

“Doubles” are a driver’s dream.  You get to take two orders out at once, which saves on time and gas.  And you get double the tips.  “Triples” are better, but a triple is the unicorn of the pizza delivery business.  No one’s ever really witnessed one, and only the youngest, least experienced drivers believe in its existence. 

Reed swept me under his wing immediately.  I liked to think it was because he saw me as Eliza Doolittle with a thermal delivery bag, someone he could mold into a street-savvy driver who knew all the shortcuts and speed traps.  In reality, I think he was simply relieved I spoke English.  He’d been waiting to unload some Papa John’s angst for a while, I could tell.

I would be lying if I said I feigned interest in his Papa John’s saga because there was no feigning on my part.  My brow involuntarily furrowed as he described the scores of no-tipping customers he had encountered.  The mobile home parks with no marked addresses as far as the eye could see.  The Super Bowl Sunday when two of the cooks called in sick and he got stuck manning the oven rather than raking in tips on the biggest pizza day of the year.

I got lucky, Reed told me.

I wished I felt that way, but that first week of moonlighting as a pizza delivery driver, I felt anything but.  I had been hired in the span of about twelve minutes, nine of which were comprised of me filling out a single-sided, one-page employment application.  Had I been convicted of a felony?  Did I have any violations on my driving record?  When was I available to work?  No, no, and any night after 5:30p.m.  Once they saw my clean driving record, I was in.

I didn’t really have any time to consider what I was getting myself into.  I accepted the job immediately and was to start only a few short days later.  I could wear whatever I wanted, aside from a company-provided polo shirt.  I also received a hat, which was optional.  Before my first shift, I changed into my uniform in the restaurant bathroom.  I took one glimpse of myself in the mirror and decided the hat had to go.  The hat I could not bear.

I kept my head down while walking through the main area of the restaurant, just in case I ran into any colleagues.  I wasn’t ready for that kind of radical honesty just yet.  I should’ve opted to keep my head down while on deliveries as well.  The first time I was met with a sympathetic look at a customer’s door, I was mortified.  I had really sunk to a new low.  “I guess everyone needs a job,” the bleached-blonde forty-something woman condescended.  A peek over her shoulder into her living room revealed a serious hoarding addiction, and yet, she felt sorry for me. 

But after I got over the initial shame, I started to have a little fun with it.  My favorite driver, “Lou,” was a Thai man who spoke kitchen Spanish.  “Estoy cerrando!” he would declare to the cooks in faux exasperation.  “Y tu tambien?” 

We called each other “partners” since we were scheduled to close together on Mondays, and then eventually on Saturdays.  “Hey, path-nah!”he would greet me on those evenings.  While we waited for the order screen to light up, he provided me with remedial Spanish lessons, while I regaled him with descriptions of what I would feast on when I got home. He loved to hear what my husband would be cooking for me on those nights, since he was divorced and mostly ate at the pizzeria.  Employees got free meals anytime.

Lou took care of me, while Reed taught me to look out for numero uno. 

Lou:  “No steal tip.  Whatever credit card slip say, I put in computer, even if zero.  You no want that stress on your conscience.”

Reed: “You know, if you get an order over a hundred dollars, and they tip you in cash, you can just tell the managers you got stiffed, and the restaurant’ll pay you ten percent.”

The one mandate on which they both agreed?  Avoid complaints at all costs.  Any driver who received a complaint about his or her driving was automatically suspended for three shifts while the restaurant investigated. 

That, incidentally, is what pizza delivery has in common with the practice of law.  One can be incompetent as hell, but can continue to practice as long as he or she flies under the radar.  If the Bar gets wind of any shenanigans, one’s career can be toast.

My time travel fantasy did not disappear overnight, but it gradually faded from an all-consuming obsession into a tolerable foggy notion in the back of my mind.  I tried not to feed it too much, but I did develop a ritual I would perform at the beginning of each shift.  As I drove away from the pizzeria with my first delivery each evening, I would listen to Huey Lewis and the News’ “Power of Love.” 

What can I say?  It helped.