Last week I had some adventures while ordering food via the app delivery service known as Uber Eats. I’m already acknowledging the silliness in forgoing what is in retrospect a pretty simple and mundane task of picking up food from a nearby establishment, but it was lunch time, I was at work, and, well, I didn’t feel like going anywhere. Plus, with the new tiered pricing for delivery, the closer the restaurant, the cheaper the fee. Yes, by all means, let’s encourage my laziness.
The first adventure was Monday, but to call it an adventure is misleading; it was a simple error. The Northbrook campus of UL is made up of several buildings, named in an order that is both logical and baffling. There’s history and progress and an array of reasons, but none of them make it easy for a delivery driver to find my exact location. The two biggest hiccups occur when one, unlike getting picked up by Uber for a ride, my location is not shared to them by my GPS locator, but instead a dot is placed at the address I’ve entered, and unfortunately for those of us sequestered in a building that is not the main building, we do not have a separate address, and therefore the dot is placed directly on what is portrayed by 333 Pfingsten Rd, and two, the name of my building on all signage around the campus is Building 1, what most people would assign as the aforementioned main building, however, that building is instead named 6, 7, 8, a deadly combo of numbers if you ask me, and 9 (ha!). It’s because of this that I choose to stand outside and wave down each delivery, representing the light at the end of what turns out is a pretty convoluted and often back-track-laden tunnel.
Add to these common misdirections the moderate rainfall and I’m sure that Jeroboam was having just a peach of a day, almost certainly directly leading to my shock and disappointment when I opened the bag from McAlister’s Deli to find something I did not order. Instead of what sounded like a tasty beef and swiss hot sub, was instead a cold, boring, basic, Italian meats salad, chalk full of more olives and tomatoes than I care to admit I picked off.
A little tidbit about Uber Eats: once the delivery is made, you can no longer contact your delivery driver. This makes all the sense in the world, but in the moment, ooooooh boy did that make me mad.
I immediately filed a complaint with my order, explaining ‘the entire order is wrong. This is a salad. I ordered a sandwich.’ I also did not leave a favorable rating for Jeroboam. I guess I figured the only job a delivery drive has is to get the order right, so I felt justified in my reaction.
Now comes Friday, and let me tell you, this was a first for me. I’ve ordered lots of food in recent years. The advent of Grub Hub and Door Dash and Uber Eats and whatever the hell GoPuff is has made it exceedingly easy to not leave the couch on the occasional (every) Sunday, so I’ve indulged. I have placed an Uber Eats order while in the back of an Uber on my way home after a late night, trying to time it out to minimize the wait at home before I’m scarfing down a Dagwood pita from Pita Pit. I’ve ordered pizza and fallen asleep, only to awake and wander the streets of Champaign at 3 am in an attempt to track down my Gumby’s. I’ve ordered twice from the same restaurant in the same day.
I guess my point is I’ve been around the block of not having to go around the block.
So it’s with all of that in mind that I share the trials and tribulations of trying to get food in my belly on Friday. The evening before I skimped out on food in a kind embarrassing way, thinking some chips and hummus would mix well with vodka and soda, but nonetheless, after a granola bar on my commute, my stomach demanded that lunch come early. Then it hit me: I’m no longer in Northbrook, bound by desolate suburbia and their $6.99 delivery fees. I’m in River North. I’m around literally dozens of restaurants whose fee would be $3 or less. The neighborhood was my oyster and I was about to get some quality grub, quickly, and at a minimal cost of delivery. Game. On.
Pick the place. Place the order. Half a sandwich and half a salad from a place of which I hadn’t previously heard (Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop). 20-30 minutes. I was so excited. The order was put in at 11:20 am. They received the order and started preparing my food by 11:22 am. At 11:40 am, it was out for delivery. I thought 5, maybe 10 minutes by the cycling bringer-of-heaven until I read that Ben is out delivering another order on the way, so the time shifted. It then said 11:55 am, and I was hurt, but not offended, nor dying. I just finished my water and tried to avoid watching the little GPS-tracked bike graphic traverse the city grid.
The other delivery message went away indicating Ben was on his way and I was salivating. My stomach was uncomfortably loud, like a squeaky toilet paper holder in a quiet office. The little biker image moved north, crossed the river, aaaaaand stopped. I waited. The delivery time kept counting up. The little biker image moved again… SOUTH. Back to the loop. East. West. North. South. Baffled, I messaged our courageous courier.
“What the heck is going on?” I pondered via text.
Minutes go by.
“I’m so sorry, Chris.” Ben started. “The inner tube of my bike popped and I’m looking for a repair shop that can fix it. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way.”
You know that classic cartoon gag of smoke blowing out of the ears of a very fed up animated animal?
As I shared this misfortune with my colleague, I wondered out loud what would go through someone’s head while they ride on a flat tire throughout the city with half a sandwich and half a salad on their back, and how it’s conceivable that they would ride, or maybe just carry, their bike a greater distance in an effort to get their primitive mode of transportation fixed as opposed to simply completing the delivery of my lunch before carrying on with the whole “inner tube repair” part of their day. I was dumbfounded. I was perplexed. I was genuinely curious. But above all, I was something I rarely thought I would ever say and mean: I was HANGRY. You read that correctly. I was so, so hungry that I turned nasty. If I had a Snickers, maybe everything would have been fine. But I did not. And it was not.
“Find someone else! Take an Uber! How long am I going to have to wait until your bike is fixed?!” I spat, hoping I would light a fire under Ben. No response.
Five more minutes transpired before the little biker image moved again, on its way to my office, and into my belly. It was 12:26 pm. And then it happened.
“Order Canceled.”
And a wave of failure crashed onto me like an ocean wave crashing onto an aircraft carrier in tumultuous seas, or like one of those big surfing waves crashing onto shore in Hawaii, or like, well you get the picture. Waves, crashing.
I quickly stormed out of the office, walked 700 feet to Mr. Beef, ordered a beef and sausage combo, turned around, and was back to my desk eating by 12:32 pm. I waited 66 minutes for a canceled order and had food in my belly after six minutes. It was tasty, and I was mostly satisfied hunger-wise, but an aura of disappointment clouded my enjoyment. It wasn’t until later that evening over happy hour Pinot Grigios recounting the story when I realized my folly.
“I still have no idea what happened,” I shared, hoping for and receiving sympathy. “Maybe it was my salty reaction that caused Ben to finally give up.” And there it was. Laying in front of me, so obvious I can’t believe I missed it.
Whether it was my 1-start rating on Monday, through the jumbled UL campus, misleading GPS trackers, and rain, or my snappy comeback to someone most assuredly having a worse day than me, it was my response that didn’t need to happen. Why did I need to be such an asshole? Why couldn’t I understand or empathize with people whose job point out my own stagnation by bringing me food I was too lazy to pick up myself? Why was I looking for sympathy instead of passing it along?
Because in those moments, I believed I was the center of the universe. That everything that happens happens to me or for me. And that every inconvenience I experience carries more weight than anyone else’s. I was weak, and I took it out on others. It doesn’t mean I’m an asshole, and I’m not calling you an asshole if you’ve behaved this way recently. All I’m acknowledging is how hard it is to keep everything in perspective. It’s a constant battle, but one that is so necessary to keep fighting.
We can get so caught up in the insignificant, trying, troubling, meaningless details that we often have to take a step back and remind ourselves, this is water… this is water.
And maybe it’s okay to walk to the nearby restaurant to get your own damn food.
