My delivery driver was running late on his route with a package that I desperately needed. I waited patiently outside on our apartment steps for his arrival. As he slowed the delivery truck, I paced forward to his van door. A middle-aged man with a paunch emerged.
“I’m David Clayman,” I say. “What’s your name?”
“Hah! My name’s Ed. Do you have some id?”
I showed him my driver’s license and we got down to business. As I was signing off on the package, I asked him about whether his routes were truly right-turn maximized (in other words, left-turn eliminated). That, I learned, is a sore point for delivery service drivers.
“Those engineers say all kinds of things,” he said. “We don’t never listen. When rubber hits the road, I got to make my own decisions. What do I do if school lets out on my route? Do you think those engineers think through school hours when they’re making these routes up?”
“Do you have access to the engineering staff? Do they ever come out with you?”
“Man, I ask them all the time! They never come. What I wouldn’t give to have them in my van for a day.”
What’s more, Ed shared tips on how to defend yourself if you’re mugged. I listened intently. He speaks from experience. After all, he’s been attacked twice in the last fifteen years of living on the South Side. If you are the victim of a mugging, be prepared to “beat ‘em bloody, then call the cops on ‘em.”
“Wait, don’t you have that in reverse?”
“No,” said Ed, “I mean it. If you’re a man, you’ll show ‘em what you got.”
Editor’s Note: Needless to say, this demonstrates that not every lesson you learn from strangers is to be accepted or acted upon. Please do not act upon any of Ed’s advice. Unless you’re an engineer involved in route planning. If that’s the case, I’d urge you to tag along with a driver like Ed once a month (if not more). How else could you know the way rubber meets road?