The buzzer squeals, and the one person I’d expect to visit is already visiting. “Someone pushed the wrong number,” I tell Cade. We continue doing whatever we were doing.
It squeals again, a cross between a whistling kettle and a sharp phone ring. I walk to the intercom at my door. “Hello?” I’m a few feet away from the building entrance, but I have to ask. This is New York City. Love thy neighbors, man, but don’t trust ‘em.
“Hello?” My voice goes from inquisitive to harsh in a short wire transmission.
A response. “Delivery!”
I look at Cade who has cocked his head and screwed his face in utter annoyance. It is the same look he adopts when I suggest doing some shopping together.
“No one here ordered anything. Sorry. Wrong apartment,” I explain. Problem resolved, or so I think.
The buzzer. Again.
“Hello?”
“Delivery!”
“No. One. Ordered. Anything. Wrong. Apartment.” I speak deliberately and with an edge to my voice that has nothing to do with any wires.
We go through the ordeal a third time, and I tell Cade the delivery man’s English vocabulary probably just includes, “delivery,” “thank you,” and maybe even “careful,” “very,” and “hot.” I should go outside and talk to him.
“Absolutely not! What if he’s a psycho trying to lure you to him, so he can chop you up into tiny bits after violating you in every imaginable way?” Cade asks, visions of Ashley Judd’s ouvre dancing in his head.
“Ummm, I highly doubt that.”
“Well, I won’t have you dealing with him. You told him it was the wrong apartment. He needs to call back the restaurant and figure out the right address. It’s on him.”
It seems the confusion is over, or has at least walked away. But then we’re interruped again, this time by the doorbell. The delivery man is outside my apartment door, no doubt listening to the scuffle that occurs when I walk toward the door.
Cade grabs my hand. “No!” he hisses. “Sit down! This guy is a freak. He’s refusing to leave. Something is not right about this.”
“C’mon! I’ll check him out through the peephole! I bet he’s shorter than me and just doesn’t understand English.” I argue.
Cade shushes me and grabs a skillet from the kitchen. The silence exacerbates the incessant doorbell ringing. I start to giggle at the ridiculousness of the situation. It’s the most action that skillet has seen in months.
About half an hour goes by before the delivery man comes back and start to buzz. By this time, I think he’s got a score to settle. Is he really still holding a bag of food and individually wrapped condiments? For the love of all things healthy, I sure hope not.
Cade and I turn out the lights. The delivery person follows someone else into the building again and alternates furious ringing with knocking. I ask Cade to get a good look at the guy, so we can at least figure out where he works.
“No way. Don’t you know that’s how they get you - they shoot your eye out from the peephole?”
I stifle my laughter for hours. The delivery guy finally leaves, but I have to live in fear the rest of my days that one day I actually will order food from him. I also fear that maybe he just really wanted to give me a free pizza.
