This Room is Dark

How much time is spent in a room, spine bent in attentive position, reading, writing, and unbending to sleep? Or what do you make of the things on your daily to-do list, written in earnestness, but failed from procrastination? What drama pervades everyday life more exciting than an unexpected e-mail, unveiling new possibilities - "now I must respond decisively, proving my worth."

Much daily work is performed in a hip-flexed posture, sitting stationary but restless. Exercise is scrawled on the to-do list but gets passed over for the comfort of bed - an easygoing old friend - and a movie or two. Every few seconds to minutes, a notification pops up, and the attention wanders: GrubHub - More blocks available for Today. Piqued, I think: "Why not? I'll go for a ride."

Two orders in, 13 dollars and 25 dollars (good), another comes up for 13. I accept. On closer inspection, it's actually split into two orders from one place, an ice cream shop. In examining each order, one of them is to be delivered to a wealthy apartment building, yet the tip on that order amounts to zero (total ~4 dollars; so the other is 9).

(In the GrubHub customer app or website, tipping zero is a willful, non-default action.)

I decide to test the waters on this one. On arriving at the magnificent building, with its prodigious shadow sprawling over contiguous sea, I spot no legal parking spots nearby, so I call the customer and ask her to come down. Peeved, she rebuffs my gentle-natured pleas for compassion ("I would hate to get a parking ticket," and so on) "Do your job and bring it up," she says. "Certainly, ma'am." Conflict is to be eschewed at any cost, especially with situations so petty.

I approach the doorman - a handsome, young black man - tell him the room number, and he laughs. It appears he has some experience with said occupants, a lady and her gentleman caller. At wit's end, having bowed before the supreme Goddess (initials EM) who evidently views GrubHub drivers as far beneath her ilk, I take the shiny elevator up and knock on the door. A man answers and snatches the food from my grasp as I recite a pre-rehearsed "Thank you for your extreme generosity." The man makes no eye contact. He barely twitches his stolid facial expression and slothlike frame upon slowly processing my pointed remark.  His mouth position is fixed like the agape maw of a tired, hungry dog, and on securing the ice cream he slams the door shut. I walk back to the elevator, proud to have said what I did in as respectful a manner as possible; then, hesitate. "Maybe I should have just let it go."

I descend back to sea level on the modern, swift elevator, and while nearing the exit, I approach the doorman again: "Let me ask you an honest question: Have you had any odd or uncomfortable experiences with the occupants of room 1xyz?" He laughs again, as he did when I first entered this opulent palace, pauses to formulate an answer, then decides to dole out the unvarnished truth:

"They've got a ton of green, and they're ornery as fuck." "Hmm," I say, "that makes sense. They tipped me zero dollars and treated me badly." "Yup. That's the way they are. Trust me, you're not the first one." Satisfied with his confirmation, I bid him a good night and run back to my illegally parked car, check for any tickets slapped onto the windshield (none), and navigate back to home.

It is here that I can reflect on what happened. I detail the events to my mother, and she assures me that I'm bound to meet all sorts of people with varying personal ethics. I want to hear more, something critical or damning. She doesn't give in. My pit bull, laying next to mom, displays higher ethical standards than that supremely wealthy couple living in a wholly different world than ours, high up in their sumptuous castle, barely deigning to look upon such unwashed plebeians as myself.

The ego hurts, but it's pointless. I've been told at various times to empathize with those who hurt you, and try to understand what drives them. Everyone has problems. At the end of today, I've come across many more generous people than unkind, yet the one negative experience shrouds the rest in complete cognitive domination. I should be grateful, and now that I say it, seated comfortably on the bed of my dark room, I am.

@DoctorGrubHub