Leave of absence

Hey there. I know posts have been sporadic for the past few months -- believe me, I have excellent reasons for that. Between a slightly heavier workload, a few writing projects kicking my ass, and an awful, awful personal disaster I had to deal with (am still dealing with?), my motivation to write these things has diminished down to less than nothing.

But life is starting to clear a bit, and more updates are coming. Trouble is, I'm still trying to get to the finish line on my current writing project, so don't look here for new stuff until May.

Forget me not

It's not hard to forget things when you're delivering pizza. Someone orders a drink, some breadsticks, Parmesan cheese, or some other little side item, it's rather easy to rush out the door and not realize you don't have them until you're halfway to their house (or, worse, realize it as you're standing on their doorstep).

One of our drivers made that mistake last night. He got into a hurry and walked off without a part of the order.

Which part?

The pizza.

We have those big warmer bags, you know? He took one of those. Empty.

The mind boggles.

No jokes tonight

One of our other drivers, Mehdi, has been working there even longer than I have. He recently took a much-deserved vacation to his native Iran. The day he arrived, his father suffered a stroke. Though he hung on for a few weeks, we received word tonight that he'd passed away.

My condolences.

Words fail

"Thank you for calling Pizza Place, can I help you?"
"Yes, I have this coupon here that says you have boneless wings now?"
"Yes, we do."
"What's the difference between the boneless wings and your regular wings?"

*facepalm*

Multiple personalities are fun

We have a lot of customers for whom Spanish is a first language. Unfortunately, none of our employees can speak Spanish, so these phone calls are often deeply frustrating.

Once, though, a call got a little weird.

"Thank you for calling Pizza Place, can I help you?"
[badly mangled, heavily accented, barely understandable English] "Do you have anyone who speak Spanish?"
"No, I'm sorry, we don't."
[flawless, clean, accentless English] "Okay, let me get two large pepperoni pizzas."

The hell?