How to Eat a Pizza - and Crow.

Half-way through another rather long, dialect-filled passage by Chesnutt, who apparently uses the Deep South as a way to show the unfair acounts of slavery in a new light so that white folk in the late eighteen hundreds would actually read it and be fooled into learning something "new" ( yeah right - I'm SURE they were "taught a lesson" - that's why the KKK is no longer around....) I discover a rumbling in my pudgy tummy.

I decide that at 9 PM there is only one route to take - Pizza.  And before ya'all go and judge me and my duressed scale - let me just remind you that my kitchen is still under plastic and that my fridge is empty.  The former of which can not be helped even if the latter was present. 

Anyway - I call in my order and am told by a happy little fellow that it shall be thirty minutes.  I pop some man panties in the dryer and wait it out.  I know what you are thinking - "why not delivery?"  Well, I considered that but since the delivery boy would arrive, rumpled and smelling of garlic and Abercrombie, he would surely see past my rounded shoulders and notice the plastic swag draping my entryway.  He would instantly see me as a germaphobe and then , THEN how would I end my letter to Penthouse Forum?  Hmmm?  Hee hee

So I take my chances and drive over to the pizza joint.  I stare at the back of a man's large bald head through the double window until he turns around looking surprised to see me sitting there in my shiny red Jeep.

"Can I help you?"  he asks politely.  

"I had an order."  I give him my name and he hobbles back to the counter. 

He comes back and pops his head out again, "I'm sorry - what was that name again?"

I consider peeling off on two tires and going to Taco Bell for crappy "Mexican" food - but grit my teeth and repeat myself.

He leaves me again, gripping my steering wheel with white fingers and then comes back, shaking his head.

At this point - I'm pissed.  I'm pissed that this jackass didn't write down my order, I'm pissed that I've waited this long, I'm pissed that I didn't just go to Kroger and get coldcuts and a pack of Ho-ho's, I'm pissed that my shirt has an outhouse on it which renders me unable to get out and kick this brama bull's ass for NOT TAKING MY DAMN ORDER DOWN!

"I'm sorry ma'am - but we don't have any order for you."

I take a breath and then open my mouth, getting ready to spew forth a string of cuss words that would make even George Carlin, himself blush when an image flashes through my head.

In it, I'm on my bed, finishing up a literary passage when I look up the pizza place's number:  "Gino's. "

I look at the guy's shirt:  "Giovanni's"

I look at the glowing neon sign directly in front of my car: "Giovanni's."

I turn back to the large man in the window who could easily tear off my arm with one of his meaty paws.  "This isn't Gino's, is it?" I ask meekly.

"Uh, no,"  he says.

And then I peel out on two tires.