Last summer I built onto my illustrious resume by landing a marquee job as a pizza delivery specialist in Islamorada, Fla. I lived and worked there for about two months with my friends Naptime and Hotspur, his hard-charging '98 Jetta.
Islamorada, known for fishing boats and fishermen and fish restaurants, is not known for having an intricate network of streetlights. Once you veer off the one main road after dark, for the most part, you can expect to be pushing your way into thick black night with only your two headlights. This complicates pizza delivery, with the job's inherent (and related) pressures of time and food temperature.
On the night of Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, I got myself helplessly lost in some hellishly black cul-de-sac. The house numbers I could find were out of order, the pizza was getting cold, and I made a judgment call.
Knowing I was in the right neighborhood, I left Hotspur on, got out with the pie and started running from house to house. As I rounded one driveway to head for the second, I thought it smart to cut through a patch of knee-high swamp grass. I was wrong.
Working on my right shin like Naptime with an axe on a coconut, some sort of pipe cracked me open and sent me chin-first into the only gravel on the island (I checked). Spitting out dirt and gasps, I picked up the flipped pizza, fished my right shoe out of the grass and found the house I was looking for.
The woman tipped me one dollar and slammed her screen door in my bloody face.
Getting back into Hotspur and pulling the door shut hard, I checked my mirrors and threw him into reverse. Behind me was a house with a nautical/fishing theme (big surprise). In the mirror, I saw three wooden posts connected into a sort of fence by a thick boating rope strung between them. Seeing that the rope stopped at the third, I assumed there would be no fourth wooden post. I was wrong.
In the next seconds, I made sure Hotspur's right-rear fender looked like my right shin: mangled.
Jumping out, I checked the damage. The post certainly won, and I knew I had to call Naptime to tell him I smashed his car.
Frustrated and angry and too poor to pay for what I'd just done, I reluctantly dialed my phone.
"Hey. What's up?"
"Umm, I ran into a post with your car."
"Really? How bad is it?"
"Pretty bad, the right-rear fender is mangled."
Naptime paused for half a breath, then said "Dan, I don't care at all. Please don't interrupt me while I'm watching the All-Star Game."
I spat out a laugh as he hung up on me.
In that half a breath, Naptime had considered the situation, realized I couldn't pay and reacted with a joke. He had completely forgiven me, and it was easy for him.
Being completely guilty and experiencing the rush of easy, no-strings-attached forgiveness really taught me an important lesson about how we should deal with each other.
Three months ago I was given the opportunity to prove it when a high school kid I know backed up into the right-rear fender of my car.
Seeing the damage as he sheepishly walked over to tell me what he'd done, I couldn't help but start laughing.
"Hey," I said with a playful slap to his chin, "I don't care at all."
Driving away I felt cleaner than any bright new fender could ever be.
Daniel needs a job, and as aforementioned, has an exquisite resume. E-mail your suggestions and/or offers to daniel.d.wallace@asu.edu.
