Entry 112: Pizza, Pizza!

Bear with me, I've got two pizza-related stories to share with you.  If there had only been one I might have said "nope- keep this under my hat," but since there were two: well, I had to share.

Pizza story #1:  Last night I visit a gal to eat some pizza and watch some Modern Family.  Good show, there.  The pizza guy is supposed to be there at 7:11 on the dot.  Says so on the website.  7:15, 7:30, 7:45, still no pizza guy.  We're looking out the window occasionally, thinking "how could this guy get lost?"  Like, literally, this is the easiest place to find on the planet.

Finally at 7:48 we see a truck with a delivery sign pull up.  Not all the way to the house, but close- like he knows that he's in the area and he's just looking around.  I figure I'll run down- I already have my shoes on- and go look hungry and surely he'll know that the pizza is for me. I do, and this truck starts rolling towards me.  He doesn't stop though, and instead of getting out to give me delicious pizza he turns up the side street and drives around the block.

I'm thinking, "What a moron!  I'm obviously the only person standing out here in the cold and wind, on a sidewalk, staring hungrily at your truck, with a credit card in my hand for you to verify my identity and all that, what else could I be doing other than trying to get that pizza?"

I wait and sure enough this guy pulls out a block away and starts heading towards me again.  This time I actually stand out in the street and wave my arms.  I'm not proud- I'm hungry.  He heads towards me again
but, like last time, turns up a side street and doesn't stop. Unbelievable!  I look up at my friend watching all this from the window, and she's laughing her ass off.  Well I'm not letting anything stop me, so I start marching down the street to where I know his truck is going to pop out again, planning on standing in front of the truck in hunger-induced protest if necessary.

I see his truck pull out again, turn the other way, and park.  He gets out with his delivery bag and starts heading up to some strange house. I'm not close enough to yell yet, but I'm thinking, "This guy is going to get frustrated, give up, and just give this pizza away and say fuck it!"  I'm intent on not letting that happen so I hustle up to catch up to him.

I reach him as he's headed back to his truck- delivery bag in hand- and I say something to him like, "hey! It's me- I'm the guy you're looking for!" And he's kind of like, "oh hey..." and I'm excited and I say "Yeah, you were close- I was just one house down and trying to flag you down!" and he's like "right... well, I gotta go." And I'm like "But what about my pizza?" and he's like, "What pizza?"

So I look at his truck.  It turns out that this story- which should have starred just 1 moron- actually starred 2. Because while he might have been the idiot that can't find an address, I was the idiot who didn't know the difference between a Pizza-Hut sign and a Good-2-Go sign.

The Pizza guy finally DID show up (20 minutes later) but forgot the soda that was supposed to come with the food.  My friend wanted to call and complain, but I pleaded to let this pizza-related drama end.  "Call later!" I plead.  Turns out she doesn't have to, because an hour later the pizza delivery guy shows back up, soda in hand, and says, "Did you call the store and say I was driving around the block lost?"

I didn't, but I think I know who did.

Rather than being the end of pizza drama, the next day I had yet another "run-in."

Pizza Story #2

A girl I work with has a favorite type of pizza.  Brags about it all the time.  She brought some in one day, but complained that it wasn't up to par and didn't have enough sauce.  I accused her of making excuses (it was still okay, but not great) but she wouldn't let it rest and kept ordering it at home until she got what she considered a "perfect sample."  Then she brought it in.

I say to her, "Pizza in the fridge, right?" and she says yup.  And something else, but I couldn't hear her well because I was already zipping off to the fridge and she lost most of her voice with bronchitis.  I get to the fridge and look down and see 1 slice of cheese pizza in a blue 1-gallon Ziploc bag.

It's hard to explain thought processes as they happen in concurrence with actions, but I'll do my best. Initially I think, "It's odd that she brought in only 1 slice, but maybe she just saved this one to bring to me and prove her pizza is the best."  By this time I have the slice on a plate and in the microwave.  Then I think, "Maybe I should check and see if there is more."

I look in the fridge, and there in a grocery bag are two more blue 1-gallon Ziploc-bags full of pizza.  Hmm. By this point I've taken 2 slices out of these new bags and added them to my plate to microwave.  But then I get thinking about why this 1 slice is out and separate from its friends.  Maybe there were more in the bag but she already ate all but 1? I'm starting to get suspicious.  I go and ask my friend, who has no idea what I'm talking about, and she comes over to check it out.

By this time I have 3 slices of pizza, fully microwaved, on a plate. And as soon as you look at the slices you can tell what happened.  It's like a game of "where's Waldo" but the only 2 people in the picture are Waldo and Barack Obama.  This one slice is definitely different.  Which means, someone who also likes cheese pizza and also likes blue 1-gallon Ziploc bags decided to bring in just 1 slice of pizza for lunch and set it next to my friend's many slices of a different cheese pizza.

What do you do now?  I panic.  First I think, "well, maybe I'll put the slice back in and they'll never know!" But I look down and see all the cheese melted to the plate.  That plans not going to work.  My friend is freaking out, too.  She says put up a sign explaining everything but I tell her no, that's a cop-out, and way too much work.  Think of how much explanation this would require! So instead I decide to take one of her slices of cheese pizza, put it in the other 1-gallon blue Ziploc bag, and set it right where I found it.

All day my friend and I kept vigil on who was going to the fridge and for what.  Never identified the owner of the single slice, or even knew that they were aware of the switch.  I tried a bit of the stranger's pizza (a bit gross, I know) and it was definitely inferior to my friends'.  So I say, whoever this was got a pizza-upgrade, courtesy of my friend and I.  Happy Thanksgiving and all that.

Caleb "I'm probably done with pizza for a bit" Shreves

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