I used to order a lot of food online, from many different apps and websites. Name a food delivery site, and I’ve probably been on it. I haven’t had a car for a while, and I hate cooking, so if I wasn’t out with friends getting food at a restaurant, I was getting it delivered to me.
My favorite ones were Uber Eats, Doordash and SkipTheDishes, which I would cycle between every time. A cool feature on all three of these apps is the ability to communicate with and see the profile of your driver. You can see their name and picture on the app, and if you tap on “More Details” you can even see how many orders they’ve delivered, and their driver rating out of 5 stars. Sometimes, when I’m bored waiting, I look at the profile and check these things. I usually get drivers that are always 5 stars, with tons of completed orders, since I tip very well and am probably a highly rated customer.
Now, I had been doing this for several months, and it had developed from habit to possibly an addiction. After you order food so many times, you start to notice that you get the same drivers, which makes sense since you can only have so many in the area. I didn’t live in a very big town, so there couldn’t have been that many. Usually, I would see the same guy pop up again every week or so.
That is, until Joe.
Now, I don’t remember the first time he delivered to me, but I remember the first time I noticed I had seen him before. It was in the evening, probably around 8PM, and I had ordered from Red Lobster on Doordash. I saw his name and profile picture “Joe, Novice Driver”. He was a bald white man, probably in his forties. He had a five star rating, despite having only completed 15 orders so far. He was clearly new to the app. I was a bit cautious since he was new, so I was watching his delivery speed and tracking him on the map throughout the whole delivery. He seemed to slow down as he entered my neighborhood. I lived in a pretty wealthy neighborhood, with tons of kids, so it’s possible he was trying to be safe. Other than that though, it was normal. I watched outside my window as he walked up to my front door, dropped the food off, and left.
That was the most normal delivery he had done with me.
Two days later, I switched over to Uber Eats for an order from McDonalds, it was around 10PM, dark outside. I place it, and straight away it shows a driver has accepted my order. “Joe, Newbie”. Same name, same profile picture, same person, two days after the last one. This time, it showed that he had completed only 2 orders before that. Somehow, I had gotten the same guy on two different apps, within two days. At this point. I was a bit creeped out, but I realized that maybe Joe is just new to this, he signed up on two different delivery apps somehow, and by chance has gotten me as a customer at least three times already. I realize now as I write this that this didn’t really make sense at all, but I guess I was hungry and didn’t really care at the time. I didn’t bother cancelling, since even if I really wanted to there wasn’t a refund guarantee after they start preparing your order and have already matched a driver.
I stalked his location the entire way, it must have been about 20 minutes of staring at a mini car on a map driving to my house. Despite my worries, he actually drove at a normal speed, not sure what I expected though. The odd part was once he got to my house. This time, he parked in my empty driveway. He walked up to the door, dropped off the food, and then went back into his car. Instead of leaving right after, though, his car did not move for a good 10 minutes. It’s as if he was waiting for me to come outside before leaving, god knows why. I usually wait until the driver is completely gone before grabbing my food, since I feel like it’s awkward if they see me grab it, so I waited until he left. Anyway, after 10 minutes, he finally pulled out of my driveway and drove away. I brushed the whole situation off as he parked in my driveway because he’s new, and he stayed because he was waiting for a new order, then tried to forget about it.
I didn’t feel like ordering food for a bit because of the situation, instead I just walked to the grocery store and bought my own food like a normal person. After about a week though, I was craving some late night fast food, so I placed an order from McDonalds again, but this time on SkipTheDishes. Although I didn’t have any actual reason to worry yet, I didn’t really want Joe to be my driver again, and I hadn’t seen him on Skip before. I place the order, and to my relief, the name did not read “Joe”. This time, I had Ryan delivering my food, thank god. I didn’t even bother watching the order, I just wanted to get my food without stressing about it, so I just watched some TV while I waited.
After 20 minutes or so, I got a ping on my phone saying “Your order is almost here, it’s 5 minutes away!”. I wanted to see the driver’s location, so I tapped on the notification and it opened up the app. Ryan was indeed 5 minutes away. Then, I got curious, and decided to check out Ryan’s profile, I felt like enjoying once again having a driver with at least more than 50 completed orders.
It’s a damn good thing I was curious that day.
I open the profile up, and to my horror, the profile picture is the exact same as Joe’s. He was just using a different name. “Ryan” had zero orders completed, it’s like he had just signed up for this one order. I had still not escaped Joe, or Ryan, whatever the hell is name really was. My mind was racing; “Who the hell is Joe?”, “Why the hell is he my only delivery guy?”, “Why is he using a different name?”, “What does he want?”, “Why did he stay in my driveway for ten minutes?”. This guy was less than five minutes away, and I was terrified. I had no idea what to do. I decided to pretend I wasn’t home, so I shut all of my lights off, locked all my doors, closed all my windows, all that stuff. Then, I went down to the window where I could watch as he arrived to deliver my McDonalds. It was pitch black outside, except for the street lights on the road, so nobody could see into my house with the lights off. This window that I watched through was relatively hidden, it was from the basement and very low to the ground, hard to spot. It also conveniently had a view of the entire front area of the house, including my front door and driveway. I was confident he wouldn’t see me through this window, so I sat and waited.
Those next minutes felt like hours, as I held a baseball bat in my hand ready for anything. He arrived just on time, but this time he stopped on the road like the drivers usually do, instead of in my driveway. I watched, paranoid, as he walked toward my house, seemingly very slowly. I was expecting him to start banging on my doors, or maybe break a window, or even start yelling at me to come out. But then, I noticed he actually had my bag of food with him as he walked toward my front door. Surprisingly enough, he just walked up to my door and dropped my food off. I looked down at my bat, in immense relief, laughing to myself about how worried I was. I hear his car start up and drive off shortly after and listen to it drive away until it’s too far to hear anymore. He was gone, all he did was deliver my food. Turns out this guy’s just a new driver, probably changed his name to hide his real identity from the customers, I had nothing to do with it. I was just being paranoid. Still though, I told myself I would never order food online like this again, I get way too paranoid over these little things, and it’s an addiction I need to get over.
His car started again and drove away a couple seconds after he had dropped the food off, probably had to run back quickly to get to his next order. I dropped my bat, and started walking towards my front entrance to grab my food, now hungry as ever and still amused by my overreaction. As I’m walking I smile and think
“Damn he’s a fast runner, haha, he must be rushing to get those orders as a new driver.
Actually, how the hell did he get back to his car that fast? Damn, I wish I was that fast, heh.”
I’m about to flip the front entrance light switch on, and then I realize.
“Did he even walk back to his car?”
I’m standing there, frozen, my finger touching the light switch. I’m trying to figure out if this is just my paranoia or if this is a reasonable concern. Part of me is telling me not to check, because if what I’m thinking is true then I’m going to freak out. I’m still not visible from the outside through my front door window, but it’s just around the corner of this wall in front of me. I decide to go back to my hidden window, just to check.
I walk into the basement, climb onto my step stool and peer through the window. I check everywhere but the front door, I check the driveway, the lawn, the road, as if I don’t want find what I’m looking for. Finally, I look straight at the area in front of my front door, and just as I horrifyingly expected, Joe was waiting for me, knife in hand, just outside the entrance to my house. I could barely see his silhouette, but the streetlights in the back made him visible. If I had opened the door to get my food, he probably would have attacked me and killed me. I was moments away of revealing my presence to him with that light. I was in complete shock, I could not believe that I was looking at a killer just outside my door. My inner thoughts were going insane, I sat still staring at him, ensuring he did not move an inch, while my mind felt like it was about to explode.
“What the fuck? What the hell is going on? He must have gotten a second guy to drive away for him, so I would think he left. What kind of fucked up shit is this? Why is he even doing this? Is he trying to rob me? Is he just a fucking serial killer? Fuck, what do I even do? Should I call the police? No… What if he decides to break in if I don’t come out? I have to divert him… Shit, I hope this works”
I pull out my phone, and go into the app. I tap “Communicate with your driver”, and send Joe a message:
You: Hey man, sorry, I just realized I had the wrong address in. I’m actually at my friend’s house right now, but I forgot to switch it. Would you be able to come here instead?”
Ryan: Oh, okay, I just left though so I’d have to go back to get your food.
You: Oh, gotcha. You know what? Don’t worry about it man, I can probably cook something up here instead. I’ll increase your tip though since you were so understanding.
I added 10$ to his tip.
Ryan: Oh, thanks! Yea, this is my first order actually, so thanks a lot. I hope I get you again as a customer, I’d be happy to meet you.
Me: Oh yea, for sure! Have a good night man.
Ryan: You too.
I then closed the app, and called the police right away. I explained everything on the 911 call, and watched as Joe’s driver picked him back up. I guess he is planning on coming back again, based on what he said in the messages. The police came about fifteen minutes after, and they came inside. I talked to them about the whole situation. The changed name, repeated deliveries, the part where he waited for me in my driveway for 10 minutes, everything. They said they would contact the three food delivery services to try and find and arrest Joe and his accomplice, but they also explained it would be difficult to accomplish with no actual evidence.
Needless to say, I moved to a new town two weeks later. No way in hell am I leaving Joe with my address. The police watched my house and patrolled the area until I moved, in case he showed up, but he never did. He was probably waiting for another order from me.
Since then, I have deleted all of my food delivery apps, and will definitely never touch one ever again. I can just make my own damn food.