What You Are About to Read is A True Story

What you are about to read is a true story. I am telling it 24 hours after the fact.

I easily could have started this recountment off with a lie. Just a slight exaggeration. I didn't though.

The reason for this is, I very much want you to have a perfectly accurate account of all the events as they happened to me last night.

Therefore, I will not embellish by telling you this was the first time I had ever ordered from a fast food delivery service. It was my second.

The first time I used an online app to have food delivered was during one of the summers of Covid. I can't remember if it was UberEats or Skip the Dishes or even which Covid summer it was. All of my summer memories from 2020-2023 have been compressed into one chubby year. Or slim century depending on how you look at it.

In my head, our centuries now look like this: 1800-1900, 1900-2000, 2000-2019 ( COVID) 2023-2100, 2200-2300, etcetera.

The above timeline is subject to change. Obviously.

I had been working in the yard all day when I worked up the nerve to convince myself I should pay someone to bring me dinner. I found that to be agreeable and even surprised myself with a bold improve move; I ordered my dinner through an online app.

That's about all I can remember about my first fast food delivery experience. Partly because it happened during the great hippocampus hiatus, and partly because the event was - uneventful.

I ordered food, I got food, I ate food.

Which brings us to the dark & post-stormy night two evenings ago. Anyone in North America probably heard about the ice storm that swept over the US and Canada. In my particular area of North America we got freezing rain, ice pellets, then 15 cm of snow topped off with several mm of sheet ice.

When these things combine they form cement.

Since I'm maintaining my year's New Years resolution to quit work before midnight (like some sort of independently wealthy muckity muck who doesn't need to work 23 hours a day), at 5 o'clock I headed outside to start shovelling.

Outside, I took a few steps towards the snow shovel then skate, slid, walk, splayed my way to the sidewalk.

I would need 2 shovels. One roofing shovel for cracking the top and bottom layers of ice and one snow shovel for pushing the layer of snow in the middle.

I live on a corner. Which is to say I have a lot of sidewalk to keep shovelled clean. Too much for a woman of my age I was told by my mother (of 87 who herself shovelled that day.)

Halfway through the torturous shovelling I entered it into my top 10 list of most miserable winter shovelling events. (I almost added in a tiny lie about me immediately ordering some antique ice tongs so at least in the next ice storm I'd be better prepared - plus they'd look really cool on Instapinbook. But that is EXACTLY the kind of exaggeration I have committed to avoiding in this retelling)

The shovelling lasted a couple of hours but it felt like a Covid century. I was inside by 7:30 in the evening.

Once inside, I cracked my mittens off and made my way to the fridge having decided on a grilled cheese sandwich, black blean soup & salad for dinner. I'd grab the soup from the freezer and the salad was already made so I just had to lop off half a pound of butter and fry up some bread and cheese.

Without any bread or cheese.

These are the moments that can break us. Having just survived an ice storm shovelling, I was now facing the reality that I didn't even have enough ingredients to make bread and water.

That was a insignificant exaggeration for effect. I do have water.

That cheese and bread moment did break me. For the second time in my life I used an online fast food delivery service for dinner.

After debating with myself for 15 minutes the side of me that swings towards fries had a more convincing argument. Which was, But you've never tried Pinks Burgers.

Pinks Burgers it was. A local place that everyone has eaten from and raved about. Finally. I was doing it. This was a BIG and exciting night. A new, long awaited, love affair with a burger and fries that I've been daydreaming about for a couple of years. And someone was going to pick it up and bring it to me.

I dialed the app in, made my selection (cheeseburger with fries), entered my drop off location (on the box by my front door) and watched as "J" made his way to the restaurant.

What happened next is very sad.

J made his way to the restaurant, waited there for a few minutes and then started to head towards me. For those who don't know, you can see all of this on the app. It's a direction map with a little cartoon car driving in real time.

Once I saw he had picked up my food and was on his way to me I floated towards my kitchen feeling a bit lightheaded from it all. Plus I hadn't eaten. I laid out a round, matte white plate, a black cotton napkin, salt, pepper, vinegar and ketchup.

As I was closing the cupboard my phone dinged that my food had been delivered. Welcome to what should have been the second most exciting moment of my life.

But instead it was this:

I'M MISSING A COUPLE OF SENTENCES HERE WHERE THE COMPANY APOLOGIZES AND ASKS WOULD I PREFER TO GET A REFUND IN CREDITS OR HAVE IT PUT BACK ON MY CREDIT CARD.

I AM THEN STUNNED WITH THE REALIZATION THAT MY DINNER IS NOT COMING. I HAVE SPENT 15 MINUTES DECIDING, 35 MINUTES WAITING & 45 MINUTES WALKING AROUND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD LOOKING FOR MY DINNER OR A RACCOON RUNNING AWAY WITH MY DINNER.

I had them put it back on my credit card and just like that I was dinnerless again. It was very sad.

Later that night I padded into my kitchen to get a drink having worked up quite a thirst after eating half a pound of butter for dinner. That's the moment I stuttered.

Jumping into my lime green crocs I skate, slid, walk, splayed my way out the front door, around the corner, around another corner to my backyard gate that's off of a side street.

Pinks is right across from McMaster University. I'd guess a lot of the delivery app drivers are students. This was probably one of those students, although not the specific one that studied boxes and front doors.

250F for 15 minutes. It was delicious.

I hope you enjoyed this true story written by karen.