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.

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.

Definition theatre

Overhead: a conversation between Mini Boss and a woman at the counter.

MINI BOSS: I need you to sign your credit card receipt, please.

WOMAN: [no response; not visibly paying attention]

MINI BOSS: I need you to sign your credit card receipt, please.

WOMAN: Hey -- I'm not illiterate. I heard you.

*facepalm*

Smile!

Mini Boss has an iPhone. A handy piece of technology, that: browse the internet, look at maps, listen to music. Oh, and make phone calls.

It also has a camera, which I conveniently forget whenever Mini Boss wants to hide around the corner and stealthily take pictures of something amusing. Like, say, me trying to deal with some idiot on the phone.



I can't even remember which idiot I was dealing with at the time. I think it was one of those "Hand the phone to the person in the house with the least information" calls. But who knows. I apparently make funny faces when I'm angry.

Fortunately for Mini Boss and the peanut gallery at Pizza Place, the phone call lasted long enough for me to approach the edge of a breakdown, as you can see here in Figure 2.



Feel the love.

(And if you look closely at the order pad I'm using, you'll notice that it's blank. Which means I was on the phone with them long enough to want to take a flamethrower to people, and they still hadn't gotten around to ordering anything.)

Commercial failure

When customers ask what kind of drinks we carry, we have two options:

1. List all eight or so varieties. This is what I do.
2. Say, "We carry Coke products and Dr Pepper." This is what Mini Boss does.

The problem with Mini Boss's approach is that, for the most part, people don't understand what "Coke products" entails.

He often complains about the customers who hear his version, and then ask for Pepsi. "How can they think that Pepsi is a Coke product?"

I don't know. Maybe because every single Pepsi commercial is about Coke? They show off the Coca-Cola logo more than Coke does.

Nothing

I have nothing today -- my hands are too sore to type and my brain too empty to create words. Read this other thing I wrote instead.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

You want to know how crazy it is at Pizza Place? Take me -- I'm surly, sarcastic, I never do anything Mini Boss tells me to do without complaining about it, I'm late virtually every day, and my open disdain for doing anything related to my job is palpable. And I've started this here website, describing in detail how our restaurant sits on top of a portal to hell.

So what happened today when I looked my paycheck? I learn I've been given a fracking raise. Without asking for it, even. Free money!

I don't know what's going on. But I like it.

All we have right now is this box of one dozen starving crazed weasels

On Monday, a friend of mine and I decided to order some pizza. Just like everyone else, we didn't go for Pizza Place -- I got online and ordered from Pizza Conglomerate. My friend wanted beef, bacon and extra cheese on his pizza; I opted for chicken, bacon and jalapeños on mine.

Not more than three minutes after finalizing and sending my order from their website, an entirely too cheerful employee of Pizza Conglomerate called me. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but we're out of bacon." My friend and I conversed, and we each decided to replace the bacon on our pizzas with pepperoni. "Okay!" the employee squeaked, and hung up.

A few minutes later, she called me back. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, failing to withhold a giggle, "but we're also out of chicken."

"Hmm," I said. "Do you have...Canadian bacon?"

"No, we're out of Canadian bacon."

"Well, in that case...in that case what do you have?"

"We have everything except bacon, chicken, Canadian bacon, green peppers, sausage, green olives, and black olives." By my math, that leaves beef, Italian sausage and onions.

I settled for Italian sausage. And the knowledge that despite our antipathetic managers, mentally challenged wait staff, and a delivery driver who so hates his own customers that he's started a website devoted to calling them stupid (Hi!), Pizza Place is somehow better than Pizza Conglomerate.