It happened to me again the other day. I approached the counter of a local restaurant to pick up the food I had ordered. The person behind the counter looked at me and asked “DoorDash?” Which made me think of all kinds of things.

First, do I look like a DoorDash driver? Sadly, maybe I do. I am a 60-something guy who pulled up in a cheap old car. I suspect that we live in a world where lots of 60-something guys in cheap old cars have decided that driving for DoorDash (or one several other companies that do the same thing) is a good way to make a little extra money in retirement. But I am not that guy. OK, I am making some extra money in retirement, but it is driving something a lot bigger than my cheap old car. So no, I am not the DoorDash driver.

But that got me to thinking about why I was there picking up my own food instead of having the 60-something guy in his cheap old car deliver it for me via DoorDash, GrubHub, or another of those apps that seem to be used by everyone on the planet except me. That, friends, is the larger question. And I answered it by realizing that I just can’t do that.

Not that I am above that kind of work. Many years ago, I made some extra money in college as a delivery driver for Domino’s Pizza. Which could be a blog post all by itself, because I have stories. This was in a college town where many students in dorms lacked cars to go get their own pizzas. Or if they had their own cars they were often too intoxicated to drive them. But that was part of the value provided by Dominos – a pizza to your door in 30 minutes or less.

But now? I feel like the only person still alive who insists on picking up his own carry-out meals. Does this make me anti-DoorDash? Or maybe just anti-DoorDash for me.

First, there is the cost. Getting a meal from a restaurant is costly enough these days. Ordering for carry-out used to be good for avoiding a tip to the server, but no more. (“Oh my, such a lovely job of ringing up a charge on my credit card and handing me the bag that was passed to you! You deserve a lavish gratuity!”). Bringing DoorDash into the equation often adds to the cost of the meal itself, and then there is a second level of tipping involved. I remember how rarely I got tips as a pizza delivery driver near a college campus in the early 1980’s. I don’t think we live in that world anymore.

I realize that it costs me a bit in gasoline and wear and tear on my (cheap old) car to pick up my own meal. That expense is, however, trivial compared to the tips and add-ons from a delivery service. I don’t mean to pick on DoorDash, but hey – they have the catchiest name, and must learn to take the lumps with all the money they get from everyone (else).

Even the idea of having a cheap meal delivered to me seems wrong somehow. I have trouble with the concept of having something from McDonalds handed to me at my front door. A fast food joint like McDonalds is fine in a pinch, but I don’t consider the food there good enough to have delivered. You’re having someone bring you a hot meal and you pick that? I am not above driving to my nearby McDonalds and bringing the food home. I have concluded that the biggest reason I will do one but not the other is so that I can eat the French fries on the drive home, when they are at their peak of deliciousness. Nothing degrades during a car trip like French fries, which seem to have the shortest half-life of any substance on earth.

Maybe that is it – it is all about quality control. When I order myself, I can ensure that I arrive at the restaurant before the food is ready, so that it is at its hottest when I take possession of it. I also ensure that I have no other stops to make nearby, so my food gets to my house as quickly as possible. I have lost count of the times I have arrived at a restaurant to see an order awaiting pickup for several minutes before the delivery driver arrives to get it. I do not intend to be the guy on the other end of that transaction whose meal is on the verge of becoming leftovers by the time he receives it.

I suppose that the heart of my reluctance to order my food via DoorDash is this: I am not too good to go get my own food. The hunter-gatherer instinct in we humans is strong, so it seems like a good thing to go out and procure my own sustenance. When the weather is nice, I enjoy the trip. When the weather is bad, I would feel guilty about making some other poor guy (or girl) take the risk of slick roads so that I can avoid the responsibility of feeding myself.

And, I will confess, ordering food for delivery always reminds me of the scene from the old Bugs Bunny cartoon. You all remember it – the one where the ill-tempered king shouts at his servant to “Bring me my hasenpfeffer!”

OK, the clip proves that the king doesn’t actually issue the command to “Bring me my hasenpfeffer”, but my memory was close enough. (And the cartoon writers missed a great line). I am sure there have been some times where I did a pretty good imitation of this Charles Laughton-like king demanding this or that, but I try to keep those times to a minimum. And one of the ways I can do this is to pick up my own food.

So now you understand why all of the come-ons and promos from Door Dash, GrubHub, Uber Eats and the other similar services get no response from me. Because I may be a lot of things, but I am not a cartoon king. Or a DoorDash driver. No matter what the person at the counter of my local restaurant might think.