The 'Delivery'

Location: Yuma, Arizona
Year: Roughly 1973

Ever been in a spot where you could land in a LOT of trouble and escaped with your skin? I have. Here's what happened:

After I got my first car that I wanted (a 1969 VW Bug), rather than the one the folks gave me (Thanks Mom and Dad!), I needed a real job to pay for it. Mom and Dad cowrote the loan for it, but I had to make the payments. And living in a small town with no real industry outside of farming and the military left few choices to a 16-year-old. So, pizza delivery it was!

There was a little pizza joint named Lujano's Pizza in town. It was owned by two brothers named, get ready for this, Dickover. If I remember, one of them was named Greg and I forget the others name. They couldn't have been more opposite of each other. One was tall, had long hair and a beard and was pretty laid back - he was the one us kids most easily got along with. The other brother was short, more my height, with buzz-cut hair and no facial hair at all. And MEAN. He was the taskmaster to all of us rambunctious kids. They usually held back in the kitchen baking the pizzas while us underlings made the dough, did housekeeping and janitorial stuff - and made the pizza deliveries. Just this one job alone has supplied me with a number of great stories waiting to be told. Out in front of the pizza joint was the sit-down area and the cash register. More often than not, there was a guy named Greg out there, waiting on the customers and ringing up the sales. He also did a pretty good job playing the guitar and doing Elvis impersonations. We called him, rather to his dismay, Elvis. And there you have the job setting.

As a pizza delivery guy in a small town, you soon get into a routine and you WILL learn the town backwards. Most of our deliveries were to homes, of course, but a lot of them went to the nearby Marine Base. Marine Corps Air Station Yuma was one of our main destinations. That Marine base was a source of never-ending pizza runs and okay tips. Drunk Marines are pretty good tippers. The BEST way to get ANYWHERE on a Marine Base? Carry a pizza. I imagine that if terrorists of today had known that little bit of wisdom, the War On Terror would have started decades ago.

That particular evening that I was working at Lujano's we of course got an order to the base. But this wasn't an ordinary order - they wanted FOUR of our finest large pizzas. I was lucky and was the next in rotation, so I got the delivery. We had a big, four-slot pizza oven thingy that kept everything warm until we could hand it off to the customer. Tonight I would need it, but not to keep the pizzas warm...

I loaded up the pizzas, fired up the VW Bug I was driving and putted off in the direction of the base. It was on the other side of town and it took about 10-15 minutes to get there - SMALL TOWN.

As I turned South of of 32nd Street onto Avenue 3E, I see, much to my disappointment, a line of cars backed up from the main gate of the base. Oh, goody... I had no idea what the holdup was, but since I had the pizza oven with me, I wasn't really concerned. So, I sat in line, VERY slowly inching towards the main gate.

A few minutes later, as I was just about ready to run right into the main gate area, I see what the commotion was. They were in the middle of what they called "An Alert". It wasn't normally a big deal. They would run exercises every now and again at the main gate. They'd do a Q and A kinda thing with you like where you were going, who are you going to see, etc. Civilians got off light at these things, but the military folks had to show passes, orders, ID, etc. It can take a while if you're in line behind them, like I was. And since I was a pizza delivery person, I ran in and out of these gates EVERY DAY, sometimes many times a day. I got to where I knew a lot of the MP's at the gate and they knew me. I'd sometimes be recognised before I even came a stop and would get the snappy salute and a wave-through. They weren't supposed to do that, but I was a regular AND I brought pizza!

THIS time thought, I wouldn't be treated special at all AND I could get in a whole LOT of trouble. You see, I had a bag of pot in my glove compartment and THIS particular exercise included drug-sniffing German Shephards. Cue the dramatic music...

I said, "Oh, Crap."

While sitting there a couple of cars back from the main gate, I was in a heap of deep trouble. If caught bringing that stuff on the base, I would get permanently barred from ever setting foot on said base again. Not good for a pizza delivery person, again, in a small town. I wasn't too worried about the law, as I was a kid and first offense, and blah blah blah. What I WAS worried about was my ex-Marine Dad. Oh, man... this is gonna hurt.

Well, while I was sitting there furiously trying to figure out what I was gonna do, the line inched forward another car length. I was next! I decided to turn around and get out of Dodge. I looked over my shoulder and I was completely boxed in. Nowhere to go, except forward! ACK! I was REALLY getting nervous now. The drivers of said vehicles were being asked to get out of their cars and the dogs were jumping right in and sniffing away. I was dead, i just knew it.

Suddenly, I remembered the pizza oven! Moving as quickly and as smoothly as I could, I removed said Bag O' Pleasure™ from the glove compartment, turned around and opened the pizza oven in my back seat, slid out the middle pizza, tucked the afformentioned bag under the back edge and slid the pizza back into the oven closing the door. Now let's see if this will work!

My turn came up. I pulled up to the little gate-thingy and stopped. As luck would have it, the MP there was one of my regular guys. He recognised me. He asked me to get out of the car and leave the door open. He also asked to not try to talk to the dog. The dog jumped into the drivers seat and commenced to start sniffing around. Finding nothing of interest, the dog started sniffing the back seat area. That's when it got a little hairy...

The dog started sniffing and barking and pawing at the pizza oven. The MP looked at me and I said "He eats the pizzas, YOU bought 'em!"

The MP goes over to the car, orders the dog out and opens the pizza oven.... and sees four piping-hot Lujano's pizzas.

He closes the oven with a smile and sends me on my way.

I have NO idea if he knew or not. And I don't care... I just smile and deliver my pizzas, minus the extra oregano.