A thing that happened.

I had an interesting experience today, if you have ever delivered stuff for a living you know that you see a lot of stuff, most of it not terribly exciting, but interesting, I have delivered pizza to some girls working at a strip club, I have been barked at by dogs, which doesn't bother me because I love dogs. I have had the stereotypical woman in towel opening the door(nothing was intended, I got there too early and she had to run out of the shower, also it was below freezing at the time, poor lady was in a huge hurry to shut that door again) I've been stiffed on tips and overtipped, delivered to the drunk, the stoned, and the criminal, and to everything from trailer homes, to hotel rooms, and once to a truck parked on the side of the road.

Through it all I have never felt in the slightest unsafe, this is in large part due to my privilege, I am a large white man, and while I am not traditionally intimidating I am still not the first thing that comes to mind when people are listing their potential victims.

Today I felt unsafe.

Let me tell you about Studio 6. It's in North Portland on 82nd and based on my experience there it is now on our list of places to not send our young female delivery drivers by themselves. It is an extended stay motel, and it appears many if not most of its residents are there on a semi-permanent basis. As with most motels, the front has a small parking lot, this was overcrowded with vehicles, there looked to be space for perhaps six cars, and I counted about a dozen, some of them occupied, one of them having a loud and obvious drug deal happening. Sitting and standing around the steps up to the front door was a crowd of perhaps twenty people only some of whom seemed to know each other, mostly they were just occupying the same space, kids, adults, whatever.

There was an underground parking area, which I entered to try to find a parking space, this was in vain as again, it was overcrowded, with cars literally parked in the lanes, also I saw a car up on cinderblocks and one with its doors removed and leaning against it.

I parked down the street, while walking to the motel I overheard a portion of an argument that went: Get out here right now or I am taking the dog! I do not know how it ended.

For the first time in my life, I left my cash bag in the car as I didn't want to be visibly carrying money.

I walked in, and a curious thing happened.

The group occupying the front steps made sure to make way for me, people made eye contact and said hello with a smile, once inside I went up the stairs, walked past another obvious drug deal, and again, was warmly greeted by passerby just as I am anywhere else, down to the joking about if the pizza I was carrying was for them.(that happens depressingly often.) My customer didn't have much of a tip for me, and apologized profusely for that, which I thought was nice and showed consideration. Given the circumstances of where my customer was living, I figured she wasn't exactly flush with cash and being treated like a human was acceptable compensation.

I left without incident and went on back to the store where I did dishes for like two hours.

I suppose you could take away from this that I learned a lesson about judging based on appearance. That I realized that we are all the same no matter our circumstances and gained some level of understanding of those less fortunate than myself, and with examination found my initial trepidation to be completely unfounded. You would actually be wrong there.

I don't know what I learned exactly, but I do believe my initial reaction was not to be dismissed, as the final piece of evidence for this I submit to you one detail I left out: The front desk was completely sealed in with bulletproof glass. I trust the motel company to know its neighborhood and clientele and so no, I am pretty sure that area is not the best choice to wander if you have money on you. That doesn't mean everyone there is a criminal, or even that the criminals there will care about you in particular, but it does mean the risk is real and to ignore it would be folly.

For the most part folks are just folks, and not inclined towards causing trouble no matter their background, that is a good lesson to take away from today, but always remember the bulletproof glass, backgrounds still matter in that they force people to make choices, and some backgrounds, some neighborhoods, have worse choices than others.