The Worst DoorDash Customer Ever!

She was a psychic

Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash

I have to admit that the great majority of DoorDash customers I actually see in person (which would be about 40% — the others request I simply leave the food outside their door) are gracious and courteous. Only rarely do I encounter an entitled individual I want to smack some sense into. And the gold medal for that distinction would go to the psychic I delivered to yesterday.

I mean — what a c — — — in all CAPS!

What began as a simple shortie from Starbucks to 60 East Whatever (I shouldn’t say the address) turned into the only nightmare.

The building was easy enough to find (not all are). The number “60” was carved into the granite face where it was prominently displayed. Often, big buildings in New York have their number in a tiny font and seemingly hidden as if finding it is a game of hide and seek.

As I approached the front door, one of the tenants was entering and let me in behind her. No need to even buzz. All I had to do was follow the instructions the woman had put in the app: “leave at door” and “front #1.”

That “front #1” was a little confusing as in “What the fuck does “front” mean before #1?”

I knocked. No answer. That happens often with an order that says “leave at door.” People don’t always want to meet their dasher. But in this case, I knocked anyway because of that “front” deal.

The woman who let me in was watching this.

“Do you know anything about this front #1 apartment?” I asked her showing the girl the app face. Together, we concluded that was the only door to which the coffee could go. So I did the usual thing of photographing the package in front of her door and exiting uneventfully as I’ve done literally thousands of times before.

The moment after the front door clicked shut a woman with a baby in her arms approached me to demand “Where’s my coffee?” to which I responded “I left it in front of your door as instructed,” and pointed at the package that was visible through the glass door.

“That’s not my apartment!” she demanded. “I want my coffee!”

For a moment, I was confused until I realized this woman had a storefront next door. New York more than occasionally features several doors with the same address — especially in big commercial areas (which this wasn’t).

When I looked to the right to see from where she’d emerged was when I got the memo. This woman with the bad attitude was (drum roll) a “psychic.”

Oh boy! In my world psychic = nasty gypsy grifter.

I’ve never gone to a psychic/gypsy fortune teller because I know the entire deal is a complete scam. But in the thousands of cab fares I ferried around during the part of my life when I drove a cab, I had the bad luck to pick up gypsy fortune tellers/psychics on a few occasions. And they were all loud, trashy, and entitled people.

I’m sure there are some wonderful grifters in the bunch, but for some reason, they always got a different taxi.

Back to the woman’s coffee. There was nothing to do but wait until somebody entered or left this building so I could retrieve her order. Of course, this never would have happened had this client simply put the words “psychic storefront” in the app so there wouldn’t be any confusion.

In fact, the building to which I delivered had the number 60 in front. Her psychic window featured no address at all.

“That’s an ice coffee. It’s going to be ruined. I paid a lot of money for that coffee,” she demanded.

Still, no acknowledgement that this was her fault.

“If the coffee is ruined after we get it, you can call DoorDash and they’ll probably give you a refund,” I offered trying to calm her down — as I hoped somebody would come or go in the next microsecond to solve this problem.

In the meantime, I had to pause my dash and stop working because I wasn’t going anywhere until this situation had been resolved.

Yes, I could have walked away and simply told the lady “You did this to yourself. Bye, bitch! Fuck off with your shitty attitude!”

The thing is that I know one dissatisfied customer making up a story to get coffee free could actually get a dasher fired forever! It has happened.

So I did the right thing and remained as both of us simmered.

After five minutes of waiting for the opportunity to get in this fucking building and end the nightmare, I decided to call DoorDash. Maybe they would send me back to Starbucks to get the coffee remade. It was very close and might rectify the situation to this woman’s satisfaction more quickly than waiting for somebody to enter or leave the building.

As Marissa the robot answered, I began describing the situation only to have the psychic lean in and talk over me in a very demanding tone to whom she thought was a human being on the other end of the line.

Instinctively, I talked back over the psychic grifter to get her out of the mix.

“Don’t you raise your voice to me,” she threatened.

This was a crucial moment, as every fiber of my being wanted to scream at this whore “Go fuck yourself, you ugly beast. A psychic. As if, bitch! Here’s a prediction for your immediate future. If you don’t shut the fuck up a dasher is gonna smack you upside the head!”

And then it happened! A tenant came out the door of the building. I ran in, retrieved her package, handed it to the fortune teller, and actually apologized to this monster for the confusion she created.

Her final words were “That’s number 59. I’m 60,” as I looked at the prominent number 60 not three feet away from where we both stood etched on the face of the building to which I’d delivered her coffee.

No matter. She acknowledged my apology with a modicum of courtesy and the whole affair ended. I looked at the app to find I’d only lost 8 minutes of my shift. Not a huge issue.

Within a minute, the phone chimed with a McDonald’s order going to a cop in the 9th precinct (where the exteriors for the series “Kojak” were filmed). The officer was a friendly and appreciative female named Dee. No tip but hey! At least she was human and restored my faith in the species (assuming I have any faith therein).

In closing, I have to acknowledge and own one facet of this exchange. Had I not entered the building behind that tenant and instead rang the number one on the buzzer panel before entering, this wouldn’t have happened.

So in the future, maybe I should resist the temptation to speed things up by bypassing the buzzer part of the delivery. Fuck that “dash” thing if disasters like what happened actually could!

Anyway — all’s well that ends well (whatever that means). The psychic didn’t call in to complain or give me a bad rating in the app. Biting my tongue had its reward.

[embed]Jeffrey Epstein Killed Himself 100% And here’s how I knowmedium.com

[embed]Mom’s Final Request Pass the jointmedium.com

[embed]I Wrote and Arranged a Hit Record But I didn’t know it until 25 years latermedium.com

[embed]In the Back Door of the New York Times And out of the driver’s seat of a New York City taximedium.com

[embed]How I Met The World’s Most Infamous Pedophile Working suicide watch at MCC federal prison with Jeffrey Epsteinmedium.com

https://medium.com/beyond-the-scoreboard/when-new-york-city-had-three-major-league-baseball-teams-a9e1d928c0f3

[embed]Three Weeks On the Road So you wanted to be a musician? You got what you asked for!medium.com

[embed]Winning a Woman’s Heart By washing the dishes — who’d-a-thunk it?dollarbill108.medium.com

[embed]Memories of New York’s Legendary East Village Past “Start spreading the news”medium.com

[embed]Near Misses at the Big Time Three cautionary taleswritingcooperative.com