So the time to order a pizza is when you’ve had a long, difficult day at work and you feel too tired and hassled to bother cooking.

It was dark when I pulled into the council car park opposite the pizza place, blipped the central locking and was taking a few steps across the footpath when a small white missile zoomed right across my path. Inches away.

I was lucky. I caught it in my peripheral vision just in time to avoid becoming a hood ornament.

The driver sprang out, slammed his door without so much as a second thought. He sprinted across the road and disappeared into the pizza place, dangling his keep-it-hot bag.

I followed, stunned but unharmed, glad I was still upright.

I asked for the manager. He fronted. I was clearly agitated. I told him that one of his delivery people had almost run me over.

He asked me, “Which one?

“How do I know which one ?”

“What kind of car was he driving ?”

“A small white one.”

“I have several drivers with small white cars.”

“The one that just ran through your front door.”

“I’ll check,” he said disappearing inside – and not coming back out.

I was, by this time, ready to make a scene among the other customers but I could see this was going nowhere and so I paid for my pizza and decided a fair thing was to re-arrange the careless driver’s windscreen wiper, not seeing he was following me closely with his next delivery.

Now it was his turn to hit the roof, “What are you doing?!!”

“You almost ran me over.”  I think I pointed out that he was careless, had unmarried parents and that he was lucky he was not explaining a downed pedestrian to the police as well.

“You vandalised my car. ”

“Let’s talk to your employer about your insurance and your driving record.”

We marched back into the shop.

I handed the manager the broken windscreen wiper, admitted my misdeed and asked him what he was going to do now. He refused to accept any responsibility for his employee and left us “to sort it out ourselves.”

I vaguely remember him asking me to not swear in front of the other customers.

By this time, the driver was really upset. He wanted all kinds of compensation from me. I flatly refused.

He chose more abuse as his preferred option and slammed his door. “I’ve got your number,”he yelled.

“I, have yours too” I said, taking his picture as an afterthought.

He screeched off – driving over the gutter and banging the front of his car on the road.

I wasn’t proud of myself, but I did learn some basic truths – the importance of accepting responsibility, the utility of a simple apology, how poorly some pizza chain managers understand customer service and the superior value of petty revenge.

And then, after cooling off, I felt a modicum of remorse for having taken my anger and frustration out on some poor bastard who relied on a crappy job rushing around, risking his life and mine too – delivering pizzas for a pittance for a manager who wasn’t worth feeding.

First published amazingly, over at the ABC – https://open.abc.net.au/projects/500-words-caught-out-28dn4ay/contributions/breaking-through-the-thin-crust-19nq5te