Pizza Delivery

If popular culture if anything to go, the life of a pizza delivery person can be a rather eventful one. Whether you’re being seduced by a lonely housewife or cryogenically frozen (and then waking up some time in the next millennium), something amusing always seems to happen. While the latter example is admittedly a little far-fetched, do such crazy things actually happen to our brave delivery boys and girls? Here’s a selection of the top five most commonly encountered scenarios in funny pizza delivery stories; I’ll leave it to you to decide whether there’s a crust of truth in them.

 

 

The one with an unbelievable tip
In the service industry, tipping can be something of a touchy subject. Generally speaking, the larger and more complicated the order, the bigger the tip should be in order to compensate. However, in a lot of pizza delivery tales the customers don’t seem to know this unwritten rule. In one story a $200 dollar order to an office building netted the driver a mere 33 cent tip (which he then declined on principle), a similar amount given to one poor guy after he was attacked by the customer’s pitbull (although they did drive him to hospital afterwards.)

 

 

The one with university students
University students are well known for their crazy hijinks, especially when it comes to ordering takeaway (indeed, I have one story about the aftermath of a certain  Chinese Takeaway   order I bore witness to that I’d really rather not relay). Some of the most baffling student-related pizza delivery stories involve them answering the door naked (and seemingly unaware of this fact) or a group of drunken frat boys attempting to climb into and onto a female driver’s car while screaming promises not to assault her; real classy, guys.

 

 

The one with a lucky escape
Sometimes pizza delivery people can unwittingly get themselves into some genuinely dangerous situations. Whether it’s delivering to drug dealers hiding out in motels in the heart of the ghetto or facing up to creepers who are a little too eager to get you to wait inside their house while they go get you your tip money, it can be a bit scary.

 

 

The one with a celebrity
Celebrities have got to eat too, and a fair number of them favor pizza. While delivery people often don’t get to see the actual celebrities themselves (for example one delivery guy got to deliver pizza to Tina Turner’s post concert party; while he didn’t get a tip, he did get to attend the VIP party), there are apparently a lucky few who get to deliver a Hawaiian straight into the hands of one of the rich and famous. Sometimes it can even be the other way around; in 2010 LaToya Jackson was seen out on the streets of New York trying to sell pizza to passers by as part of a reality TV show.

 

 

The one with a plot like a bad porno
These kinds of stories are usually the most hilarious (but also sometimes rather disturbing). Whether it entails delivering pizza to a dominatrix and her theatrically unenthused client or stumbling across a couple or couples in flagrante, you know that it’s going to be one of those nights. Better or in reality usually worse; yet, the unsuspecting delivery person is invited to join in with the festivities. The mind boggles…

 

 

Raphael O’Neil is both a pizza fan and a delivery boy himself (although admittedly once he became the latter he ended up being somewhat less the former). His favorite topping is chicken and mushroom.