The Delivery Man Battle Royale
A popular idea that has been thrown around on the internet (and that we’ve even referenced on the podcast) is to have everyone order a pizza from a different delivery place and your draft order is decided by the order the pizzas arrive. The first time I heard this I was really into it. The tension and anticipation that would be brewing at the house or apartment everyone in your league was waiting in would be intense. There’s a really good chance a brawl could break out. And nothing makes a fantasy league more enjoyable than actual fist fights between people who have known each other in a casual, social capacity for years but have probably not ever fought each other.
Even without close scrutiny however, there are a few glaring flaws with this plan. Not every pizzeria is going to be equally close to the place the pies are being delivered to—of course that affects how quickly the pizzas arrive. Not every pizza place is equally busy (Domino’s is likely going to be busier than the place where that lady found a human finger in her pizza box last year), which would certainly affect the speed they got your order into the oven. Some places pride themselves on speed, while others don’t give a shit—Lightning Larry’s is almost definitely going to get your delivery to you faster than Fat Ass Tom’s . This is a logistical nightmare—how do you decide who gets what place? Luckily, there is an easy solution to these problems—a solution (and don’t say draw straws because the whole point of this article is to not do boring shit) that may well lead to a bloodbath in your front yard that will probably end up on YouTube.
What Would Make It Better?
What everyone needs to do is pick a restaurant the day before and place your order for 7:00 PM the next day—and tell them notto show up early. If they do show up before 7:00, they are disqualified and whoever had them as their representative goes to the back of the pack draft-wise. Let me be clear: these do notneed to be pizza places, in fact I would recommend you mix it up as much as possible for diversity’s sake. It doesn’t matter what’s being cooked—the people running the joint have had a full day to prepare it. This adds to the overall drama come delivery time the next day. Instead of twelve pizza guys showing up one after another, you’re going to have a dozen delivery guys carrying a multitude of different cuisines showing up (in theory at least) at the exact sametime. Is the guy delivering the Chinese food going to be aggressive about getting there first or will he politely defer to the guy with the falafel? Is the guy from the sub shop going to jockey for position and win you glory or get strong armed by the guy with the Jamaican beef patties? Is the pizza guy actually the king of the delivery men? I have no idea. And neither do you—and that’s what makes this fascinating.
What Would Make It a Lot Better?
Here’s another twist that could make this both more exciting and considerably more dangerous: When you call them the day before, tell them exactlywhat’s going on and make sure they know what’s at stake. Tell them there will be eleven other delivery people showing up at roughly the same time but tell them you’d really like to see their food get to the door first—just not one second before 7:00. If you really want to make things get nasty, tell them there’s going to be a big tip in it for them if they get there before the other guys. This is going to lead to (at the very least) some pushing and shoving and possiblya full-on delivery guy riot just outside your door, easily visible through most standard peepholes. It’s even conceivable that these restaurants might send their biggest, toughest employees in anticipation of a fight once you tell them what the deal is. For liability reasons, you should tell them not to bring weapons. If they choose to arm themselves after that, it’s on them and you’re (possibly) not culpable. As far as pure entertainment goes, this is clearly the one to pick.
Is there a downside to any of this? Absolutely. It is dripping with downside, but there’s a good chance you won’t realize it until you sober up. People could get hurt or even killed, league members and delivery men (and maybe you) will go to jail, and countless lawsuits will be filed. There’s also a pretty good chance the food you have been patiently waiting for over the course of an entire day will end up strewn across the front lawn and ruined because of the melee—an added kick in the nuts if your delivery man did not do well in the competition and you end up with like pick #8. Depending on where you live, the scattered food could attract raccoons, cougars, coyotes, or mountain lions if it’s not cleaned up quickly (which it won’t be because you’re passed out or in jail). I could go on and on.
**Do not take my use of the term “delivery men” as a sign that I am a sexist. It would also be completely fine to use women for this, but if you do you should probably use all women. A mix of men and women fighting on your front lawn seems distasteful somehow.
**Also, if you do indicate to your delivery man that you are going to give him a big tip if he wins, you better do it. The last thing you want to do is stiff a guy who just won a no holds barred street fight against eleven other people; you’d have to figure the adrenaline would be running high after he came out of that.
Keeping Your Hand on Something
Selecting an item and having everyone put a hand on it and then awarding a prize to the person who keeps their hand on it the longest is a tried and true method that dates back to the time of our forefathers. Probably. It’s at least been around since Season 1 of Survivor when whoever could keep their hand on the idol the longest determined who would win the final immunity of the season. It requires prolonged focus, mental and physical toughness, a strong bladder (or a high tolerance for being soaked in your own urine), and a willingness to put your life on hold. Sounds like a winning formula to me.
What Would Make It Better?
The blueprint the event is built on is beautiful in its simplicity, and as such it’s tough to improve on. The only two real opportunities I see to spice it up are as follows:
- Making the object you are required to keep your hand on something interesting
We’ve seen people put their hands on everything from mopeds, to riding lawnmowers, to TVs, to Nissan Sentras hoping to make them their own. Following that same pattern of logic, using your league’s trophy or championship belt would make a lot of sense. Yeah—boring sense. You know what would be more exciting to keep your hand on than an inanimate trophy? A greased up pig, a greased up person—actually, anything that is greased up. It is a scientific fact that things that are greased up are more exciting than things that are not. Unless you’re one of these anti-science guys, you will get up from whatever you’re doing right now and grease something up. You know, for science.
2. Having the location be somewhere unconventional
Depending on how far you want to push this, it will separate the men from the boys and will possibly result in injuries or deaths (a recurring theme in this piece). Here are a few of the ideas I have had off the top of my head for where to put the greased up object you are going to try to keep your hand on:
- In the deep end of a swimming pool
- In the back of a slow moving (or possible gradually speeding up) pickup truck on a bumpy dirt road (wear helmets)
- In an abandoned building that you have someone set on fire
- In the middle of a busy crosswalk
- Use police data to determine the most dangerous neighborhood within 2 hours of where you are and go there at 1:00 AM
- In the woods camping with no food. For extra excitement, do it in a section of woods where there have been a lot of bear sightings recently.
**It’s important to set some specific ground rules about what you may or may not do whilst engaged in this competition. For instance, if you don’t want people to be able to scratch, bite, slap, kick, punch, spit on, or otherwise physically impose their wills on the other participants, you need to spell that out in the rules. Of course, if that’s the sort of contest you’re looking for, just say “go” and watch the chaos ensue. It’ll end fast, but it will be electric.
* * *
And these are just a few ideas. The possibilities are endless; I’m totally open to the idea that you could think of something even better than these. If you have other brilliant innovations to share, we’d like to hear them. If you have ever greased something up and been in a competition to see who could keep his hand on it the longest, we want to know. Until then, you have a couple weeks to come up with an idea that is going to separate you from the sheep. Bring out your inner wolf and get it done.
