I was in an urban area doing a delivery. I had the food in a brown bag with handles, and I got to the specified address, but it was obvious something wasn’t correct, since the number I was looking for was basically missing or something like that, for example where I might be looking for 1033, and the numbers jumped from 1031 to 1037. So I called the customer, and I fortunately was able to reach him/her. (I assumed it was a guy.) He gave somewhat vague descriptions of the area, it was more referential, like “Next to the such & such sign.” So, there was some back-n-forth there which I found frustrating, and I wasn’t sure if maybe I was being scammed. I remember hearing a running motor that sounded like a car on his end of the line, so I began to wonder if maybe the guy was in a car or outside on the street, or perhaps on the move, or something like when people are away from their home or work and ordering while out.
So, I just followed the trail of descriptions he gave; I’d describe where I was, then it obviously wasn’t quite correct. I distinctly remember being around 7th Street, and the layout was such that the street numbers went higher to the East, and lower to the West. So I was trying to cut off a whole area of possibility with a question, like, are you East of 7th? There was no firm answer, then I became aware of how long this was taking and I realized this was now in the losing-trade category, since it was taking so long. I just apologized to the guy for the confusion, saying I just wanted him to get his food– trying to assure him that it wasn’t me being deliberately shady or something like that. So, then suddenly he gave me more specific instructions, saying to go by this specific place which was down on the corner toward the West, and lower on the hill. It was all basically a grid, btw, with the main horizontal street located at the bottom of the hill, and everything else was then up from there. So I ran over to the restaurant which had a red awning, told the guy on the phone that’s where I was, then the next instruction was to go past a place with “Crew” in the name, which was a bar or something like that, then turn right and look for #76.
I went up, past the Crew place, which was a bar off to the left, and as I went by I saw instructions from the customer in the delivery app to pick up some warm sake, as an add-on or special request. I just let out a sigh, like ‘you’ve got to be f-ing kidding me’, to make that kind of audacious ask on top of all this runaround, and it was this guy who had totally blown the directions. So I ignored it, then I turned right, which opened up into a somewhat open space that was essentially behind the store fronts, like a parking or loading area, and it had become night time, and there were lots of people hanging around, kind of like people just loitering out around town when they’re out at bars on a weekend. Then I saw some numbers on the side of the buildings to my right, finally in the range I was looking for. I saw #65, #67 etc, so I thought I was close, but then I saw people lined up outside waiting to get into a 2nd story entrance with a house number that matched what I was looking for. I thought no way this could be the right place, since it seemed like people just lining up to use a bathroom.