Delivery story 218 Pizza Paws writes: This story is similar to Adam's (#75 in Kansas) with a couple of annoying twists. I had a delivery in St. Paul, MN on a busy four-lane road. Needless to say, I wasn't about to just throw my hazards on and sidle up to the curb. Thankfully, the building had alley access, so that's where I headed. I was delivering to 1470, a duplex on this street. 1470 has a common back fence with its neighbor 1478, and each of these homes has its own outside fence, but nothing runs between them. There were also five parking spots off the alley, nearly centered between the buildings though slightly on the 1478 side. So, all in all, I could probably be forgiven for drawing the inference that these were a pair of rental properties with the same owner. Only one of the spots was occupied, so I pulled in and put on my hazards. A man started walking up from the yard of 1478, and I thought he might have ordered and was just taking time out to visit the neighbors, so I approached him... only to be queried, in a harried tone of voice, regarding which house I was delivering to. I told him 1470, and he immediately went into a long spiel about how I was taking the parking of HIS TENANTS. I told him, calmly at first, "Sir, I'll only be here for just over a minute, and there are still three other spots available." This didn't mollify him one bit, and he started shouting at me. Somewhat more worked-up now, I attempted to explain to him that I lacked the desire to park on the street and have the vehicle I depend on for my livelihood rear-ended at 40 mph. This still wasn't enough to placate the guy, so I (quite huffily, I admit) told him, "Fine. I'll move the damn thing if it's that damned important to you." So I wasted the time to move it over, went back to the backfence gate near the parking, and cut slightly across the lawn of 1478 in order to reach 1470. (At this point, I was still under the assumption that the buildings were co-owned, although by a particularly anal-retentive landlord.) Suddenly I heard a nasty huff on my right, followed by an incredulous, half-to-himself statement that I was now trespassing! That's when I really let loose on this guy. I pretty much barked at him that these appeared to be co-owned because they shared a fence, that I was just trying to do my frigging job, and that I thought he would understand because he looked like a pretty busy guy himself. (That's no edit, by the way -- I was still calm enough... and/or smart enough... to refrain from deploying the full-strength effenheimer.) No matter -- he threatened to call my manager, and it turns out he did follow through, even going so far as noting the plates and model of my car. My manager was pretty understanding, although he did make me call and leave an apology message, which I managed to do pretty calmly. In any event, I guess there's no accounting for taste... or temperament! return to top