After browsing the menu of one more restaurant bursting with “exciting opportunities” for work, I found how unpayable unpaid work was becoming. I didn’t bother thinking of words trying to describe my state (physically and mentally) on a Thursday evening following one of the week’s most painful days of work. That irritating feeling of opening the fridge only to find an array of all things sad and bland shoved in wasn’t any better at all. Out of sheer desperation, I persuaded myself that what sat inside the container could have been my lunch from the previous month, which, to be honest, didn’t seem like a realistic strand of hope.
I could operate like anyone in the modern world by expediting my meal at the click of a button via a microwave in digital form. For once, I did not even need to get up from my cozy sofa.
As if serving food from a Thai tearoom, the meal in question integrated rice and broad noodles and curries fit to fill whole counties alongside tried and envisioned spring rolls foretold to fix any problem. Yes. All problems gone thanks to that delightful shrine in town dishing out noodles and rice curries in bamboo boxes.
The digital umbra. Feels downright poetic, doesn’t it? Looking back, those words did feel a tad bit over the top, but just like the fumes from that currie soothed my aching muscles and tortured thoughts, they too felt comforting after spending nearly an eternity on my kh couch. The gaping maw between slumped shoulders welcomed pillows over which I was free to be taken by a zombie-vein couch-surfed fantasy curating boredom for the duration of my setting sun redefined as TV pacing. Binging, in other words.
At the 30-minute mark, I received a notification that my order had been picked up. The drivers little map showed a car icon, “Marcus” which was my delivery driver, and a new route starting from my apartment.
The new time estimate: 5 minutes to my apartment. My brain began prepping for the delicious dinner, and this is my descent into my madness of a delivery.
Phase One? Marcus’s delivery time optimism.
The app told me that Markus should already be cruising at an almost half an hour mark relative distance from my apartment without traffic.
I woke up from the show, paused it without my earbuds in, feeling as if I could almost catch a whiff of curry. Why not suspend reality before drastic life-changing events unfold?
Wonderland had bridged the gap between fantasy and reality. Reality kicked in when I realized I needed to put on at least presentable pants. It wasn’t abnormal for a summer weekday, but for some reason, I felt it prudent to assume my attire was somehow courteous.
Marcus was somehow unbothered by my lack of showering and socializing. I did a quick security-vacuum style check to see if there were any random gaps at the entry platform of my ‘virtual’ apartment where my shoes and my husband’s shoes had ringed formed.
Oops, forgot to refresh. Unsurprisingly, Marcus was still stuck in the same spot I saw him. Pretty sure my timer was still stuck on 5 minutes. No worries – I’m sure this time the estimate will actually work. I saw a so-called ‘glitch’ coming, but your guess is as good as mine. Technology isn’t perfect after all.
I clung to optimism as my stomach rumbled with anticipation. Stage Two: Mild Concern (Minutes 6-10)
Marcus’s icon had yet to budge. The timer remained at 5 minutes.
I decided to freshen the app. Maybe a more abrupt approach might encourage it. It remained the same. My hopes were beginning to fade, but I had to remind myself that traffic was a possibility, maps aren’t always accurate, and promising outcomes do come to those who bide their time.
I muted my show but allowed myself to continue watching in anticipation of the doorbell. Stage Three: Active Monitoring (Minutes 11-15)
By this stage, I had resorted to checking the app every 30 seconds for new updates. Marcus’s car was on the move, but from the looks of it, the vehicle appeared to be navigating in some strange three-dimensional maze which suggested that he was trapped in a space-time distortion or driving in circles.
Still stuck counting down with no changes: 5 minutes. I decided to get up and look outside for the delivery driver who I assumed would be spinning in circles. Instead, I was greeted with the urban routine at night accompanied by my neighbor out on a stroll with their oddly fluffy dog.
I sent a message via the app for the driver. “Hi Marcus! Just wanted to check up on my order :))”
There was silence.
Stage Three: Bargaining (16-20 Minutes)
The timer was counting down at its usual pace. There was only 5 minutes remaining. Now Marcus’ car was looking like they had been teleported to a different part of town. I was making deals with every possible universe out there.
“If my delivery is at my place within the next 5 minutes, I will go work out tomorrow.” (Liar.) “I will, in fact, talk to my mother this weekend like I had told her last week.” (That has a decent chance, I guess.) “I will not, however, stop using single use plastic.” (While these are noble claims, I highly doubt those words were uttered from a motivated soul.)
For the tenth time, I started to check the rating of the restaurant, as if this fantasy world would grant me my preferred outcome—getting my food. It was a five. I wasn’t blind enough to overlook the fact that this was rich, since I had just ordered from a new place.
Step Five: Paranoia (Minute 21-30)
At this stage, I was more or less positive that Marcus was munching on my food in his car. Every movement of his icon on the map was evidence of his untrustworthiness. He was moving North—he was absolutely turning into a parking lot to try my spring rolls.
He was turning East—he was most definitely looking for a secluded place where he could appreciate my curry without being judged. I pictured what I thought were calculated yet victorious strides marching through my dinner and accompanying Pad See Ew cues as if polishing his invisible trophy as a covert delivery infiltrator. “The Pad See Ew from Bangkok Palace is primo.” Five stars. Would not hesitate to breach again/respectfully indicating the initial theft.
I prepared and canceled numerous elaborate finger-pointing accusations; each one bolder than the last. “Why did you not bother telling me you were stealing my supper, Marcus?” “Kindly remind me, split second ago told you dinner was served while you were washing your ears? Which one was it, lost appetite or sanity?” Again, I decided to implement a different sort of message, this time in sync with the façade I invented on the front network.
“Any updates with the delivery? The app tells me it’s still stuck in 5 minutes!” And sent. No response.
Stage Six: Deep Despair (31-40 Minutes)
I can’t believe I let myself stare at the timer that read “5 minutes remaining” for over thirty minutes. The program I was working on got to its final step and my stomach had done an entire 180 from light little nudges to demanding, in the loudest way possible, that it needs to put some food away. I was laying on the couch with one arm covering my face in such a way that made it clear I was in no way enjoying this predicament and the other arm, up and down, raising my phone to eye level to refresh the app was turning into an excruciating game of beat the clock.
I came up with an entirely new way to interpret time. What if “5 minutes” were more of a metaphysical argument than an understanding of the time we as a society agreed on? What if Marcus actually lives in a place where 5 minutes transforms into an impossible to quantify and stretch task?
As speculated time with Einstein’s theories; if Marcus were actually speeding at light speed, could 5 Earth minutes transform into much longer when put under the microscope with the timeline that all of us fundamentally agreed upon measurements took? For the last time, I double checked the order to see if I had actually put in my apartment number and to my surprise, I had.
I checked my address one more time and everything was in order. For good measure, I even zoomed out on the map just to make sure I wasn’t ordering from some parallel-universe restaurant in another state.
Aside from the bizarre reality of the app’s premise, everything seemed normal. It was astonishing that the app managed to guarantee delivery, seemingly, from a restaurant that my eyes could see was not within a reasonable distance from my home. Stage Seven: Acceptance (Minutes 41-45)
At 41 minutes, something snapped inside me, and I felt unexpectedly at peace. Absolutely breath-into-the-belly calm. I felt complete and it dawned on me that the Pad Thai might never find me, and that was alright. The sustenance might as well join my other half-remembered, yet deceptively mourned culinary adventures of late… crab cakes hidden in the depths of the freezer, long-sought sautéed chard, a seldom-attempted eggplant parmesan, and a no-bake chocolate layer cake.
All of my untouched culinary projects had gone unfinished. Stopped monitoring the app. Started looking through my cupboards for an alternative meal. Turns out, I had some ramen noodles!
It’s still fine to eat, but it’s been a while now. I commenced filling the pot with water only to be interrupted by the ring of my doorbell. Marcus was standing there, looking far less sinister than the food-thief villain I had been imagining.
As I took the food from him, he claimed to have a bag with an unmistakable scent of the Thai food I had ordered. “Appologies for the wait,” he said. “Sorry, the app kept giving me wrong directions.”
I wanted to be mad.
In my head, I had already crafted a ripping monologue detailing the torment I’ve gone through. What I ended up doing instead was thanking him, taking my dinner, and thanking him, then going as far as to leave a tip in the app; maybe that’s Stockholm syndrome, or just gratitude for the closure of my sofrequel autofiction. The meal had noticeably cooled by the time I was removing it from the box, but upon removing it, I found that the curry had spilled out of the bowl, the spring rolls had turned mushy, and the Pad See Ew had become so thick that the only way to describe it was “structural.” “What the hell is wrong with me?” I asked myself as I attempted to chew through the meal.
I have long forgotten the psychological torment of the last forty-five minutes, and greatly appreciative of the sustenance received, even devoured it all. Until today that is, when I once again opened the application and this time hovered my fingers over the Thai restaurant icon. The cycle of abuse continues.
Somehow still in my sane mind, I am placing my delivery order, and somehow I still think my experience is salvageable. But as a Peach those stubborn hopes return when the next phrase accompanied with the disclaimer “5 minutes away” emerges from the app. Hope, despite overwhelming evidence regarding belief, encapsulates in me hoping that it pertains to my dinner, and the waiting indeed turns to be the exaggerated form of an exercise.
