Life on Rural Street

John and I are Nascar fans. (All laughing can now cease.) I grew up watching Dale Earnhardt race and after John and I were married I was able to show him all the joy Nascar can bring into your life. Since the passing Dale Earnhardt we have both become big Dale Jr. fans and enjoy watching races. Our problem now is that we have band practice for the Open Door on Sunday afternoons. This usually means we tape the race and watch it Sunday night. And if anyone spoils the ending for us, we are not happy campers.

This past Sunday was the Dayton 500. We're talking the Superbowl of Nascar, folks. We hurried home and made sure it had recorded correctly (yes, we still use VHS tapes, thankyouverymuch. Tivo? are you kidding? We have rabbit ears!) We quickly decided a delivered dinner was an excellent idea. So John set about calling Pizza deliver places. Yes, I said placeS (plural) the first one we called said, "No, we don't deliver to your area." We thought that was odd, but decided to try another place. They answered and John gave them our address and asked if they delivered to us. They answered yes, took our order and told us it would be about an hour. A long wait, but oh well.

Fifteen minutes later the phone rang. John answered it and I could only hear his side of the conversation, so all I could figure out was they do not deliver to us. John got off the phone and told me that they won't deliver to our neighborhood after 8pm because it's too dangerous. Too dangerous. Those words were ringing in my head. You mean I walk in and out of here everyday without a care often in the dark, often by myself, but it's too dangerous for your pizza delivery person at 8:15pm? I watch families who live in adjoining apartments with mine bring their small children in and out much later than 8pm, but you can't deliver a pizza?

I was pretty upset.

Mostly, it just seemed like complete discrimination to anyone in this neighborhood. If the last number of our zip code was different, they would deliver. If we lived a couple streets over, they would deliver. It makes me sad. Not for myself, but for the families and individuals that grow up here possibly thinking they aren't as good as the adjoining neighborhood because of stupid reasons like pizza delivery.

Dale Jr. came in 3rd after a not-so-exciting mid-race run. Unfortunately Gordon won.