We certainly aren't

One of our waitresses has a bad habit of punching out incorrectly. How does one do that? By punching out in the same space on your time card where you punched in, rendering them both unreadable. She does this pretty much every day.

She found herself the recipient of some mild, good-natured ribbing about this habit today, but she didn't take it well. She became very defensive and snapped that anyone could make the mistake. When someone pointed out that no one but her ever has, she fired back:

"Yeah, well, that's 'cause y'all ain't smart like me."

Um. Sure.

Lend me your ears

The phone rings.

"Thank you for calling Pizza Place, can I help you?"
"Is this the Smith residence?"

Yes. Yes, it is. Because we at the Smith residence always answer our phone like we're running a pizza joint.

*facepalm*

I was told there would be no math

The phone rings.

"Thank you for calling Pizza Place, can I help you?"
"Yes, I have a coupon for a specialty pizza for $12.99."
"Okay, what would you like?"
"I want to get a pepperoni pizza."
"Um...okay. Your coupon is for a specialty pizza, though."
"Yeah, but all I want is pepperoni."
"Okay. Well, it's cheaper without the coupon."
"No, no, I want to use the coupon."
"...?"
"So just give me pepperoni."
"Um...okay. We have a specialty pizza that's nothing but pepperoni; it's just covered with the stuff. 100 slices of pepperoni."*
"No, that's too much. Just regular pepperoni."
"...All right. That'll be fourteen dollars."
"Thanks."
"....?!"

*Yes, 100 slices. Yes, they count them. Yes, the cooks hate making them.

I don't think that's how it works

Overheard today at Pizza Place:

WAITRESS: Oh, if my mom sees my paycheck stub and sees I spent money on food here, she'll be mad.
COOK: So? You're eighteen, right? It's your money, right? It's, like, five dollars, right?
WAITRESS: No, no, no...
COOK: You can do whatever you want.
WAITRESS: No, I can't be rebellious. If I rebel, I'll get pregnant. It's in my genes.

I suppose it's possible she said jeans instead. That would make about as much sense.

Saturday Night Specials, Part 4: Cocaine is a hell of a drug

Saturday night. Six minutes before close. The phone rings. Mini Boss answers.

"Pizza Place, can I help you?"
"Gallery Furniture!"

Okay then. Before we continue, I feel it necessary to stress that these events actually happened. I was there.

"I'm sorry?"
"Hahahaha -- didn't expect to hear that, huh? 'Gallery Furniture!' Blew your mind when you picked up the phone and I said that, didn't it?" [unhinged laughter]
"Um...can I help you?"

The wacko proceeds to try to sell Mini Boss furniture. Over the phone. At ten o'clock on a Saturday night. And not as an employee of Gallery Furniture -- he continues to refer to them in the third person: "They got the best selection, man, they really do."

Mini Boss lets him ramble for a while, probably he wants to give me material for this website. (Thanks!) After getting ten minutes of furniture shopping tips, Mini Boss tells the guy that's he already bought quite a bit from Gallery Furniture, which is true. "I've got, like, two thousand dollars of stuff I'm getting next week."

"What?" the man says. "Don't go there! They're terrible! Go to [other furniture store]!"
"Uh...okay."

The man continues to ramble about couches and tables and such. At one point, he raises his voice and declares, "Let me tell you something!"

Mini Boss waits.

Silence.

"Hello?" Mini Boss says.

"Yeah?" the wacko responds.

So much for telling us something.

Mini Boss quickly loses his patience after that, and a minute later, tells him "Look, I gotta close up." The guy pleasantly agrees, and hangs up. Mini Boss turns to me.

"That has got to go on the website."

As requested, sir.

Who picks up the ball and throws it to What, What throws it to I Don't Know, I Don't Know throws it back to Tomorrow, triple play!

The phone rings.

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

"Yes, what are your wings called?"

*sigh* "Wings."

"Yes, what are they called?"

"Wings."

"Yes, the wings."

"...Wings."

"Yeah. I know you have them, what do you call them?"

"Wings."

"Right. Those. What are they called?"

*facepalm*

Pop quiz, hotshot

Let's say you buy something -- pizza, let's say. You pay for it with a credit card. The person you're paying hands you two receipts. One is marked MERCHANT COPY and has a line for your signature. The other says CUSTOMER COPY and has no such line. You sign the merchant copy.

Now: which of the two receipts do you give back to the pizza man?

A) The merchant copy, which you signed and is clearly marked as belonging to the merchant.
B) The customer copy, because obviously they would have needed you to sign your copy, for reasons passing understanding.

If you answered A, congratulations! You're smarter than my customers.

If you answered B, you are one of my customers. And I hate you.

There's an irony in there somewhere

Last week, someone repainted our parking lot. When I arrived on Tuesday, I found fresh, bright lines marking the spaces, and two new additions: handicapped spaces! Of course, we've always had them -- goes with the wheelchair ramp -- but they've never been marked before.

But I wouldn't be writing about it here unless something goofy happened. What is it? They painted the handicapped symbol on the wrong space.

It should be the one next to the wheelchair ramp. But it's not.

Same as it ever was.

At least he has a plan

One Saturday night, another of our drivers left on a delivery. A few minutes after he departed, the phone rang; the caller ID displayed the number for that order, of course.

Mini Boss answered the phone. I saw his face grow puzzled, then amused. Without saying a word, he waved me over. "They've called us by accident," he said. "Must've hit a button on their phone without realizing it."

Sure enough, the two of us listened for quite some time to the background noise of their apartment. We listened to them -- and there were quite a few people, must have been a party -- talk about sports, talk about drinking, talk about completely random topics. We listened to them yell at their kids. We heard our driver show up, we heard him leave, and we heard them complaining about their pizza once he was gone. (Hey -- they got exactly what they ordered. It's not our fault they didn't order what they wanted.)

We listened for, oh, at least twenty minutes. (It was slow.) And toward the end, we heard of the men present dole out this master plan:

"Here's what I want to do: I want to stop gambling. Eat some pizza. Fuck my wife. And go to sleep."

We hung up before we could find out if he followed through.

If your next word is "tumescence," I'm out of here

One of the waitresses was writing something today -- something for a class of some kind. Since I'm the source of all human knowledge, she turned to me for spelling advice.

She asked for assistance on spelling...

• Arouse.
• Peeking.
• Ravenous.
• Insertion.
• Pulverize.
• Tremor.
• Shudder.
• Convulse.
  

I don't even want to know what she was writing about.

Let me answer that question with another question: shut up!

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

"Yeah, I need a pizza delivered."

"Okay, what would you like?"

[Offended] "I...beg your pardon?"

"What would you like? To order?"

*click*

"...?"

The ruler's back [Erm, I guess, I mean, do you, I think, well, um...]

Over the years, I have become steadily less and less patient with people on the phone. At first, I acted as helpful as I could. But now? I'm done with that. If people are too stupid to communicate something as simple as a pizza order, that's their problem.

For instance -- I'm not going to finish sentences for them anymore.

"Do you have buffalo wings?"
"Yes, we do."
"Okay. Um, what -- how do they -- I mean, do you have -- I guess, is there, like -- I mean, I guess -- are the orders -- um -- ?" Silence.

Now. Clearly -- to me, anyway, you might be lost -- this person wants to know something very simple: How many buffalo wings come in an order? Perfectly reasonable. I have that information, and would be happy to share.

But come on, now. You're a big boy. Spit it out.

"I'm sorry?"
"Well -- you know -- um -- is it -- like, how -- erm...."

Sorry, buddy. You're not four years old anymore.

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.