From The Pizza Chronicles



And so, sometimes, I win a small battle. In my endless warfare with the universe, I will experience the occasional victory. These are rare days, but their brilliance and sheen repays their scarcity. Today, though, would not be one of them.

It started simply enough. My statistical six months had run out, and I delivered my first pizza to a naked female. The bad part? She was five.

I pulled up to the altogether too typical house, and ran to the door with the sickeningly ordinary order. I rang the bell and stood there stupidly for the usual amount of time. I could not have prepared for the horror poised before me.

The door opened and there stood (wait for it...) a fully clothed adult woman. This city is full of them, and so I paid no mind. She asked the price, and ran off to write a check or scrape up a few fist fulls of pennies and nickels. Then came the thunderclap of fate: The high-pitched squeals of a small child. "PIZZA! PIZZA!" The screeches stuck like dagger blades, twisting as the stomp of little feet drew near.

If this job has taught me anything, it's that small children are really only good for one thing: appetizers.

Usually, I try to offset the fearsome, horrible exigency by encouraging the child into antisocial behavior. Teach them new swear words, extol the virtues of heroin, or: "...Say, do you ever hit or kick your sister? How about the dog? I would, ya know, if I were you. Like, get a stick or something and just --whack whack-- hit your brother or sister! You should do that." I'm just trying to give back to the people who gave so, so much to me.

I took a deep breath and braced myself for the little monster (this is your chance to brace yourself, as well.) I looked down and there stood, glistening and dripping with water, a very young, and all too naked, little girl. She looked up at me, smiling. My eyes shut instinctively, and I reeled away. I waited a moment and peeked from behind the heat bag. Yes, she was still there. She was still stark raving naked, and she was still five years old. I took a few moments to study the clouds, and take note that my car was still red. Oh God, why do you mock me? I stumbled back and, "Ah, the sun. Maybe I can blind myself." It didn't work. There was still a wet, naked child beaming up at me. I fished around in my pockets looking for something to gouge my eyes out with. Or at least cut myself --badly. "Ah, car keys. Good enough."

I was about to start sawing away at my tracheae when the mom came back. My eyes were still closed, so I didn't realize I had been trying to slit my throat with a SIMM. It must have looked weird. I gave her the pizza, she gave me two handfuls of nickels, and I got the fuck out of there.

Yeah, I don't know what I did in my past life, but it must have been really bad. Was I a high school English teacher? Was I French?



But the universe wasn't done with me yet.

Shawn, our trailer-dwelling, high school dropout, sexual harassment defendant, teenage store manager had a blast of inspiration. Kevin, one of the drug addled lifetime pizza delivery drivers was in the bathroom. Shawn thought it would be a good idea to jam the door closed with a broom, and so he did. Kevin, demonstrating his usual command of problem solving strategies, beat and kicked at the door for the next 15 minutes, yelling and moaning for us to let him out. We, obviously, were laughing too hard even to stand. The broom eventually slipped, and Kevin got out.

He made quite a mess of the bathroom, and Shawn ordered me to clean it up. I'm stupid and gullible, so I did. No sooner had I gone in (you saw this coming, didn't you?) did Shawn yanked the door closed and prop a broom in front. Trapped. Now who's the stupid one?

"Hmm..." I mused. "I can get out of here with more dignity than Kevin."

I flipped the door lock and stood up on the garbage can. Bracing myself on the sink, with one foot on the door handle, I lifted myself up to the ceiling. I pulled aside a ceiling tile, and worked myself up above the doorframe.

Apparently --although I can't imagine why-- whoever built the store never intended people to crawl around in the ceiling. Every good action movie includes such a scene; what would we do if ninjas ever invaded Marco's? If I were an architect, I would take such things into consideration. Such as it was, the nails were driven with the pointy bits facing up. This is bad, as you shall see.

I jumped up and teetered precariously on a board, supported by nothing but forward momentum. I needed to get a hand on another board, and I went for the closest one. Most of my weight came down on my palm, and my palm came down on a big sharp nail. I cringed, pushed off, and came down in another spot. Ow! Nails. Again. Aa! Nails. My now punctured and bleeding hand eventually hit a bare spot, and I sat, whimpering to myself.

Below me, I heard Erica, Shawn's emotionally unstable teenage bride. "Hey! His feet just disappeared." In the dust and darkness, I snickered.

I slide the tile over the bathroom back and pried up one on the other side of the door. The coast was clear, and I jumped. I put the tile back in place, and strode casually away.

Shawn saw me, then saw the broom still jammed against the door. He lunged for the knob and --whoops!-- it was locked from the inside. Yay! Jim gets a point!

New scores! Universe: 874,918,247. Jim: 3. I rewarded myself with a delicious Frosty(tm) at a friendly local Wendy's(tm).



But Shawn would soon exact his revenge, and Exiguus, my diminutive car, would be his pawn. Later that night he thought it would be a good idea to let the air out of my tires, and so he did. I saw him crouched by the driver's side, with Ian the Donkey Boy standing by, smirking.

"What a kind soul," I thought. "He's washing out my wheel wells!"

I snagged my tasty, partially hydrogenated gum-based beverage and went out. There was a loud rushing sound, and more giggling than I would expect from someone washing wheel wells.

"The fiend! He's deflating my tiers!"

I moved behind him an presented his head with the working end of my Frosty(tm). Victory would be mine!

But he saw me with the corner of his eye, and sprinted around the building. I chased after him, chilled desert poised menacingly.

Thanks to my regular use of methamphetamines, I quickly gained on him.

"YAAAA! WHERE'S YOUR PRECIOUS JESUS NOW?!" The taunt echoed down the strip mall.

I hurled the cup, and it arched, and its path was true, nor wavered. It struck about Shawn's shoulders. The cup.

I stopped and closed my eyes, remembering, "Oh yeah, God hates me."

The vessel had spun in its flight, and the delicious chocolate treat flung out and down. And that's just about where I was at the time.

And so we all had a good laugh as I rinsed my hair and shirt. Well, they laughed. I laughed about it later on though, except instead of later on it was every night for the next two weeks, and instead of laughing I was sobbing.