CANZE: Pizza guys get all the numbers

Pizza delivery drivers deserve the utmost respect and appreciation.

But of course I would say that.

I used to be one.

Although Braden Thompson said most of his deliveries are relatively tame, there were quite a few interesting experiences during my tenure as a delivery driver this summer at Silvio’s Organic Pizza in Ann Arbor. Because Ann Arbor is weird.

From customers having to put down their weed bowls to pay me, to sorority girls answering the door soaking wet wearing only a towel, I have seen my share of shenanigans.

Mostly it was entertaining, but there were times when it bordered on scary.

There was the time that a customer — who ad nauseum stressed that he was a VERY important chef at a VERY prestigious restaurant — took me into his apartment in order to yell at me that there was not enough mozzarella on his pizza. He then had me call up my boss just so this guy could express his disappointment.

To my knowledge, the dude still orders from Silvio’s.

Like The Cabin, Silvio’s did not have enough deliveries to warrant somebody solely delivering pizzas, so I would spend a lot of time back in the kitchen, cutting vegetables, washing dishes and being shouted at by surly Italian men.

The owner and head cook, Silvio Medoro, had words of wisdom aplenty: When telemarketers called the restaurant, the proper response was to tell them to “F” off, according to Silvio.

The end-all, be-all of weird pizza stories for me, though, was my last day of work, when I was making deliveries without the GPS unit we usually had. Instead, I had to print out a Google Map to get to this woman’s house, but the map was slightly wrong.

I called her to ask her how, exactly, to get to her house from the nearest major road, but my phone died. I had to go to a gas station and look at a road map to see where my navigational error was, and finally make it to this delivery.

When I got there, the girl was very nice, very friendly, and tipped really well, but I didn’t think much of the encounter. When I got my phone charged, I realized she had called me back and left two voicemails, concerned that I had died and thus would be unable to bring her pizza.

I text-messaged her to tell her I found the voicemails amusing, and then she continued to call and text me after that.

For about a month.

I miss delivering pizzas.