the pizza joint

my boss, whom i will refer to simply as lucifer for the rest of this post for the sake of simplicity, is, well, lucifer.

his underling is, well, quasimodo, frankly. but this is an insult to good hunchbacks everywhere, because our favorite bell-ringer moves faster and thinks quicker than my under-manager.

under him is poor white trash queen. it would seem unlikely, but she actually has the best head on her shoulders of the bunch. i like her.

mostly, this post is about quasimodo.

being not very quick and not very bright, he tries to cheat the system by using little underhanded techniques to make the numbers look better in the computer. i hate this. cause invariable my ass is the one getting fucked.

yesterday, right around the time i walked into the pizza joint on the banks of the river styx, quasimodo's "techniques" were in full fail mode, and i, and several of the other drivers and in-stores, where about to get our anuses stretched beyond anything we could've ever dreamt up in our wildest, most freddy-krueger-esque nightmares.

several large orders had come in. one of them was for lucifer's daughter's birthday party. so lucifer is lurking about the store, not in his usually-quite-noticable red manager shirt, but incognito. the phones are ringing off the hook.

quasimodo had bumped many of the pizzas off the board, (one of his cheats) and then was going back, along many of the other in-stores, to make them one by one. the bad news is, pizzas were being added to the list faster than he could make the ones he had already bumped off. so the pizzas being called in were backing up the board, and beginning to flash (for being on the board too long). the in-stores are confused about which pizzas they are putting together, further gumming up the works. chaos, confusion, and pandemonium reign.

i jumped on the cut table to field the pizzas flying out of the stove like something out of maximum overdrive, a well-oiled machine (i have, after all, been doing this something like three years--god! how admitting that depresses me) cutcutcutcut, slam bam! "delivery up!!" lucifer is lurking nearby, noticing that half the pizzas of his large order aren't getting made. deliveries are popping up "ready" on the computer screen, even though the pizzas that need to be taken haven't even been put into the oven yet, and begin to tick off to going late. the foyer is full of people waiting for their pick-ups. quasimodo looks as if he has actually rung the bells of notre dame with his cranium while he frantically tosses out dough.

cutcutcutcut slam bam! "pick-up for 'unlucky pizza eater' is ready!"

"darth, how we doin' on deliveries?"

"fucking horrible! (the beauty of having left this job after letting many of them know i hated the people there, and then returning after all, is i say whatever i really think, and no one really gets mad about it! i love it.) you've got two that aren't even in the oven yet that are sitting at 34 minutes and 28 minutes respectively, and actually go with other orders that haven't been put in the oven yet."

more pizzas poor out. lucifer goes on a tirade about how long everything is taking and why aren't his pizzas even in the oven yet? in-stores mumble death-threats to themselves while bumping into each other trying to make the pizzas that still seem to fill up the board no matter how many they stuff into the oven. customers frown, growl, tap their toes, and check their watches.

finally, i am routed. the routing slip says the elapsed time is 43, but i know that due to mix-ups and one dropped pizza (yes, i admit. i knocked it down in my manic back-and-forth attempts to keep things going smoothly), the elapsed time is closer to one hour. and i say that to the anarchic mass behind me as i zip out the door.

i bag 'em, and rush out to the car. into gear and flipping through the ipod to find something with the appropriate punch. ah, there it is: stupid kid.

i actually drift out of the parking lot and into my lane of traffic (yes, drift. yes, really. yes, it was fun. no, i have no fucking clue how i did it and couldn't do it again if i tried), and zoom away.

and the people who had every right to tell me to "get bent!" in regards to a tip actually gave me what would turn out to be some of the best tips i would get for the evening.

with pure adrenaline and caffiene flowing in my veins, i get back to the shop, where everything has died down to nothing. dead. zip. zilch.

i inform pwt queen that i would rather be gangraped by angry giants with saguaro cacti for cocks with tobasco lube than ever have to pull that shite again. she laughs.

but i wasn't fucking joking.

darth sardonic

p.s. tomorrow a post that wuastc tagged me with. should be fun. stay tuned.

...it's just something i saw in your face

'hawking up no. 2's hair is like trying to draw a straight line on the head of a small bird.

"hold still. hold still! hold still!!"

but in the end i guess it is worth it (no doubt dabblers in the science of psychology will attribute my tenacity with no. 2's 'hawk to the fact i desperately wanted one when i was a teenager and never got to have one. i just think they are fucking cool).

the particular pizza joint i work at abounds in propaganda. there are signs and posters everywhere encouraging us to smile and greet the customer within a certain amount of time, blah blah blahdy fucking blah. not sure how propaganda is intended to work, but on me it has a detrimental affect: if the sign says smile, i will, but it will be the dumbest most smart-alecky cheesiest most fake smile i can muster.

one of the most apalling and ludicrous bits of propaganda is what the other workers shout at the drivers as they leave for a run: the driver, on his/her way out the door, is required to call out, "driver out!" followed by the elapsed time of the order, and any side items or beverages that he/she may be hauling.

supposedly, this is so the manager's can keep track of how long it is taking, and whether or not they need to restock the pop cooler.

truth is, they rarely pay any fucking attention at all.

in reply, the workers still in the store are sposed to holler back, "buckle up, drive safe!"

here is why propaganda makes me snort: it is unlikely, were i not already planning on either buckling up or driving safe, that this line would render me so malleable as to change my mind into doing so.

it does, however, afford me with a veritable cornucopia of opportunities to use my trademark sardonic wit.

some of the most common replies to "buckle up, drive safe" that i have offered: "like you guys care!" "if i must!" "no way, crazy as a loon and unbuckled for me, thanks!"

once, with customers lined up and waiting for pizzas, i shouted back, "the more i work here, the less i wanna!" as i zoomed out the door to a hail of raucous laughter, courtesy of all those waiting patrons.

and now, sex:

(got your attention there, didn't i? you pervy little peope. hahaha. which brings up an interesting sidebar: does being a stay-home parent heighten one's perviness and smoldering libido? or is it more just when a guy stays home? or is it just me? i am gonna go with "just me" seeing as i am quite a bit pervy, and always had a plentiful libido. and another sidebar, since we are already here caught between my accursed parentheses and lost in one of my completely unrelated tangents that will force you, the beloved non-existant readers, (and me too) to backtrack to whatever i was talking about before i got sidetracked on this other thing and attempt to reboard my original train of thought (heading for hell and points west, chooo choooo): i know i really don't talk much about sex or sex-related topics within the scope of this small bit of dust under the bed that is the world wide web, but trust me when i say, o my brothers and devotchkas, i love sex. i used to write erotica (for myself mostly--and that is all i am gonna say bout that!) until i reread quite a bit of it and decided that it was all mostly rip-offs from other erotica i had read, and that while i might've added some clever stuff here and there, i wasn't really bringing anything new to the table, and that few people would want to read any of it. it is simply that i feel that discussing sex specifics in here would be putting my wife's and my personal matters, so to speak, right out on public display, and since we have family that read, that would be, in a word, icky. as far as general observations about sex or whathaveyou, well, i just never really find a moment that presents itself. now back to your regularly-scheduled program--)

and now, sex:

one of the drivers (female) that knew me before i left the confines of the pizza joint and my wife left the confines of the country was recently talking to me about my dubious and unplanned return to said pizza joint, and i told her i had done it to pay for my tattoo.

she asked what i was getting done.

it was a bit slow, so i motioned her to the back of the store where we pile up the broken-down boxes for recycling and keep the empty dough trays, and lifted my shirt to show her the tattoo.

i do this all the time. i am used to the reactions: "wow!" "fuck, that is cool!" "dayum!" etc etc.

this girl began to make what i can only describe as fuck noises: "mmmm fuck yeah. ooooh fuck, yeah! mmmm hmmmm."

then, much to my surprise, she did something that no one, and i do mean no one, has ever done, barring my wife. she reached up, and traced some of the newer lines on one shoulder blade with her finger. while still emitting the fuck noises.

now, last time i checked, i am not made of either ice or wood, so it goes without saying that my lizard fuck-n-fight brain took over momentarily and flashed up all manner of craziness in the form of in-my-head-only porn. (and worry not, o my droogs and only friends, i keep no secrets from my wife. the first story i told her of the evening was this particular one, with one of her friends present no less. we all had a good laugh.)

then i dropped my shirt, smirked my smirk, and hoofed it to the front of the store post haste, because even though she had moved away from me and given me back my personal space, she was still standing there with a look on her face that my lizard brain was reading as "take me now" and the logical and coherent part of my brain was sounding the alarm.

what's the point of this little story? not sure. but it raises a question in my head that i often find myself tackling: as a stay-home parent, one is expected to maintain a certain amount of decorum, shall we say. i mean, i am far from pta material, but we're all expected to behave ourselves.

and i am often surprised, pleasantly, i might add, to find that other stay-home parents (women, mostly, since they outnumber us stay-home dads a million to one) get randy, talk with each other about sex (out of earshot of their kids), scope hot passersby, etc etc.

we are, after all, human.

but i still sorta battle this within myself. it is normal and healthy for me to like sex, it is even acceptable for me to enjoy porn. i'm a guy, shit, what do you expect. but somewhere in my noggin i have the notion that stay-home parents don't do this. granted, it is some kind of convoluted idealistic image based, most likely, on some sort of fifties icon with a woman with perfect hair and ridiculously blue eyes vacuuming in a skirt and heels.

or, you might say, i guess, o my beloved and crazy and randy and vivacious non-existant readers, it is based on a propaganda.

wow, i feel better already!

darth sardonic