Clerks: a documentary, part 2

If you've seen Clerks, you'll remember one of its running gags. At the beginning of the film, Dante arrives at the store to find that a vandal has jammed gum in the locks of the steel shutters over the windows. Since it gives the impression that the store isn't open, Dante grabs a white sheet and some shoe polish and constructs a sign that reads, in three-foot-high letters, "YES! I ASSURE YOU WE ARE OPEN!" Despite this, every customer who wanders into the store asks him, "Are you open?"

At Pizza Place, we were closed yesterday for Thanksgiving. We're generally closed on those big holidays -- Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas. But a few years ago, Big Boss decided to stay open for Christmas.

We were just about the only business open that day, so we did some brisk business. But the pleasant amount of money I made wasn't quite worth the annoying phone calls I had to answer all day.

Every phone call -- every pickup order, every delivery order, every last bloody phone call -- began as follows:

"Thank you for calling Pizza Place, how can I help you?"
"Are you open?"

No. No, I'm just here hanging out, thought I'd answer the telephone. Why else would someone be answering the phone?

Next year, ask Santa for some common sense.