Well, I'm staying in a hotel at the moment. Twice, I've ordered chinese. Twice, they've told me "That will be half an hour to 40 minutes". Twice they've arrived in 10-15 minutes (I don't know how). Twice, I've been in the shower when they've arrived. That is all.

I had some great experiences when I used to deliver pizzas, though. I worked at a very small pizza / fish and chips place. They had a very small, loyal clientele. A man rings up one night, ordering a pizza and coke. He's out, but he wants it delivered to his home. He sounds angry. The boss tells me, that's one of their most loyal customers. The husband spends every thursday night at the pub, drinks him self stupid, and arrives home to expect a pizza, lest his wife cops it. So I drive the pizza there in my old Volkswagen. I have to brake hard, thanks to a driver cutting me off. The bottle of coke I have falls on the floor and bursts. I go and buy another bottle of coke, out of my own money. I get there, and the wife opens the pizza box to discover one mashed, fucked up pizza, and (legitimately) demands another. Husband is due home in 20 minutes. I call ahead to the pizza restaurant explaining the situation. The boss is pissed, but he doesn't want to lose a customer, so he gets a new pizza on the make while I head back. I pick it up, thrash that old Type 3 Volkswagen stationwagen as hard as the bastard will go and deliver the new pizza. As I pull out, the husband pulls up and staggers out of his Ford. Another job well done. That's about when I decided to smoke pot before work.

I've had the typical two- or three-hour wait, interspersed with where-the-fuck-is-our-food calls to the restaurant and all that, but nothing too unusual.

I live in the back of beyond where the local places don't deliver, so I have no deliver horror stories. But I wish I could just pick up the phone and order food. Life would be much easier.

One of my favorite things about New York: you can get seemingly anything delivered anytime. "Yeah, can I get three bagles, a pack of cigs, the sunday paper and a coke?" Cool!

I've never had a problem with delivery larger than the food taking, say, 10 minutes longer than they said it would.

BUT, one time I had a bunch of people over and ordered up a large pizza. One of my guests insisted on paying, so he handled the door when the pizza arrived.

Now I was across the apartment and involved in something but my ears perked up when I heard "sorry, no tip" and I had to run down the delivery guy in the lobby and appologize and tip him.

I mean, moral matters aside, this is a small pizza place, they only have a few drivers and word gets around and I would like to order from them again, you know?

Heh. I've had very few problems with deliveries, just the usual stuff like wrong food or too long. When driving though? God, what a cornacopia of freaks. I've been greeted by both naked women and men, paid in pennies, had some guy offer me coke or a blowjob in exchange for the pizza, and gotten into more long phone arguments than I can count. (As a bad slice whore I've also blown up sauce cups on people's doorsteps and stuffed drainspouts and mailboxes full of dough that will continue to rise). My brother got robbed while delivering to U-M football players, and nearly got them kicked out of the school because of it. When I used to work at a Mexican place, I was the go-to for getting angry customers off the phone ("Yeah, I'm the manager.") since they were almost always liars, scammers or never going to be happy anyway. For a long time I've wondered why this hasn't been treated with a proper movie...