Question of the Week: Delivery?

It’s time for Question of the Week, which is intended to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics!

This week’s question: do you get food delivery? Like, do you ever have pizza delivered, or perhaps a sandwich from a place that does delivery, or do you use some of the various delivery “services” that have sprung up in the last ten years like DoorDash, GrubHub or UberEats?

No wrong answers, obviously, since everyone’s circumstances are different.

The inspiration for this question was a massive online discussion I saw about the etiquette of tipping DoorDash drivers, and since I had never used DoorDash or a similar service, I realized it was yet another massive technological/cultural shift I had missed, and was so curious about it.

As you might have guessed, the answer is no, I don’t get food delivery. It might have been over twenty-five years since I last had a pizza delivered. I did occasionally when I was a teenager and in college, but when I moved into the adult world, I never did.

The reasons were 1.) I was extremely broke, and 2.) at the time, I lived near a university campus, so if I wanted fast food, I could get a bunch of stuff within walking distance. If I wanted fast food on a workday, I could just go through the drive-thru on my way home.

Anyway, the habit of never ordering delivery solidified, which is probably just as well, because services like DoorDash and UberEats look massively expensive even before the question of tipping arises.

These days, if I wanted fast food or a pizza, I would go get it myself, or, more likely, persuade myself that it would be better to stay at home and eat vegetables and lean protein.

-JM