(Reprint from the Hippy Steve column at AHA, '04. One of these days I'm gonna finish this series, man. Deliverin' pizzas is just too damn funny. And shutup, dada. I'll have some new shit done for HHC this weekend.)
In April I quit my lucrative government job, again, for the same three reasons I had done so a couple of years ago—I can't stand the suckup political environment and the backbiting that comes with it, I can't stand the creative limits a government job puts on you, and I fell madly in love with a crazy woman. No, wait, this time's not quite the same. Erase the "love" and the "crazy woman" parts. Both of those belong in a pair of trashcans along a fencerow in backyard Alabama, and that's where they are. So make it two reasons. Sorry, I digress.
I spent the summer fiddling with building a couple of websites I envisioned, trying to learn the language of HTML.... all the while fishing my network for a traveling job that had absolutely nothing to do with government other than billing it gobs of money for my time. My websites sucked. My network fishing hooked me a place in a roster of like-minded others, all of us waiting for government funding to open up for pillaging. "Don't worry," the networking waters wrote, "The money will come flying out in July. Uh, August. Make that January..."
Around September I looked at my bank account. "Cheese n' Rice," I thought. I always cuss like that in my mind...pity my mouth doesn't usually cooperate. "That's not enough to buy a pound of good weed. And look at the date. Madre Secar! I couldn't sell enough weed in time to make the truck payment anyway. I gots to go get me a job."
The West Side Pizza Hut sits in a strip mall across a parking lot from a Super-Albertson's; you wouldn't otherwise notice it except it's next to Mindbuster Video. Admit it, those Mindbuster Blue awnings and neon placings in the windows draw your eye... they're fighting the internet tooth and nail.
I already knew the Pizza Hut was there because I had walked the place before Albertson's and Laundromats and Mindbusters were available in Aledo. I tucked my hair under my hat and my shirt in my britches and walked in. The place was cramped, there seemed to be just enough room for the soda machine, a counter, two little bench seats placed by the glass storefront and a lighted menu overhead. I would learn later that there was plenty of room on a Friday night for approximately thirty-five sweaty fat pissed-off customers, five or six flailing skinny drivers pushing through them with orders and a dog or two.
"Can I help you, sir?" a tall barrel-bellied dude asked from behind the counter. He had one of those silly visor caps on...you know, the kind that were so popular with unlikely joggers in the 80s...I looked for his Olivia Newton-John stretchy wrist sweat straps, I half-expected him to break into an aerobics routine while humming "Let's Get Physical". Nope. He just looked at me. Just another poor bastard numbed down to less than humiliation for a management position. The nametag pinned to his Pizza Hut shirt said, "Numb Bastard, May I Take Your Order Please?" Just kidding. It said, "Raymond Beth, Commander of All Things Pizza."
"Do you need any drivers?" I asked. Raymond looked me up and down.
"Well, as a matter of fact, we do. Do you have any driving experience?" I resisted the urge to tell him I had out-driven the Texas Highway Patrol many times across two counties before I was 18 in an illegal '62 Rambler wagon that had an abandoned refrigerator freon tube acting as a throttle linkage. He wouldn't have believed me anyway.
"I've delivered stuff all over the place. Oklahoma to Austin, Saltillo to Abilene."
"I see." He looked me up and down again. "But have you ever delivered pizzas before?"
"No sir." But I've eaten a shitload of 'em. "But I can drive and I can read a map pretty good."
He looked me up and down yet again. Damn dude, do you want a pizza driver or a spanky-boy? He reached under the counter and handed a clipboard toward me. "I see," he said. "Well, fill out this application and call me when you're done." He walked out of sight into the kitchen.
I plopped down on one of the bench seats by the windows and started scribbling. I stopped at 'reason for leaving' my last job. Hmm....shall I tell him I told them to fuck off because they were a buncha numb bastards...ouch, nope. He might take that personal. I scribbled "retired". The phone started ringing. I filled in the Education Section. The phone kept ringing; it was starting to annoy me, phones do that. Now, is it just me, or is it not important to answer the phone to take an order for pizza in a place that sells pizza? Hmm, again. I stood up with my clipboard and leaned over the counter. "Uh... Raymond?" The phone kept ringing. "Raymond?" Ring. Ring. "EXCUSE ME--- RAYMOND!?!" Raymond appeared from the kitchen with pizza sauce on his face: "Are you done with your application?"
Ring.
"No. Do you want me to answer that?"
Ring.
"Oh." He picked up the phone. I went back to my application. Let's see...'How did you hear about Pizza Hut?' with about 15 check-boxes beside canned responses ranging from 'A friend told me' to 'Something I received in the mail'...I didn't see 'A constant barrage of television commercials jammed down my throat since I was a small child' or 'I took a dump there once'. I went with 'Advertisement'. In the background I could hear Raymond taking his order on the phone; in my pizza driver inexperience it sounded like: "Yes, ma'am. Again, sorry for the delay in answering. That's three Super Gonzo Heart-Stopper Specials, Defib crust, a million-order of Hot Wingie-Thingies with extra Slimy Fake Ranch Vein-Clogger Dipping Sauce, two orders of AED Cheesy Bread Product and six two-liter bottles of Mountain Diabetes. Is that right? Good. That will be $4,334, and please have your Amex card and driver's license or ID handy when your driver arrives. If he has no trouble finding your home he should be there in about two days. Thank You."
Raymond hung the phone up. I signed my application under the fine print indicating I would be killed or worse if I had fibbed even a little bit on it.
Raymond looked at me. "Thanks for letting me know about the phone ringing," he said. "We can't hear it back in the kitchen."
I stood up and handed the clipboard to him. "You're welcome. That's not good, is it? Why don't you put a ringer or phone in the kitchen?"
He took the clipboard and looked at me like I wasn't the first retard who had asked a stupid Pizza Hut question. He looked down at the application. "Hmm..so you're retired from the City?"
No. I'm RETARDED from the City.
"Yep."
"Just looking for something to keep you busy?"
"Yep. That and I'm trying to put some cash together for a special project."
"Well, we've brought quite a few retirees to success in our company family. In fact, some of them have risen to great places in our restaurants. I see you've indicated that you're available at any hour. What kind of special project?"
Making my truck payment. Ain't that fucking special? My mind cussing was slipping.
"I want to get my truck fixed up. And yes, I'll work any hours."
"OK. You'll have to take a test first. It's very important that you answer every question right. Look at me. I can't emphasize this enough...I can't hire you if you don't get every answer right." He pulled a worn test booklet and a crisp new answer sheet from under the counter and handed them to me. Oh shit. I sat down, Raymond disappeared into the kitchen again.
The test booklet had handwritten notes all over it-- people before me had considerately used long math on the page borders and circled answers to questions like, "Your store is forecasted to do $5000 in business this week. If it only does $4500, how much blood will your manager have to forfeit, dollar- wise?" That section was easy; I used the notes of those gone before. And then they started with the hard questions:
You notice a coworker taking Pizza Hut property home. You should:
a) Tell your coworker you're going to kick his sorry nonconformist stealing ass.
b) Split the box of mozzarella.
c) Take another toke.
d) Snitch.
A manager tells a coworker to sweep the floor. After the manager leaves, your coworker hands you the broom and says, "Here, YOU sweep it. And tell that ^%$ to kiss my *()^&," then goes and starts making a loaded personal pan pizza. You should:
a) Cram the broom up your coworker's *0^&, then invite him to sweep the floor along his way outside for a nonconformist stealing ass-whuppin' and smoke break.
b) Throw the broom into a corner and confer over the toppings for the personal pan pizza.
c) Take another toke.
d) Snitch.
And so on. Something told me to go with d) on all counts. I did. The phone started ringing again. I signed at the bottom of the answer sheet under Your Mother is watching you sign this.
Ring.
I didn't bother with hollering this time, I walked around the corner of the counter into the kitchen. You should never do that when you're hungry...two stacked stainless steel conveyor ovens were lining up bubbling, browning cheesy garlic smells like upcoming Pavlov discs...
Ring.
"Ylls blink phuns, Rumans?" I slobbered.
The sounds of the ovens and cooling fans were enormous. Raymond was sweating and stretching dough at a table across from the ovens. He grabbed a handful of Italian sausage out of one of the bins above the table. He looked at me.
Ring. I could barely hear it now.
"WHAT?" Raymond yelled. I learned at that instant that yelling would have to be normal up in here.
"YA WANT ME TO ANSWER THE PHONE!?!"
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