by Olivia Dellston
Pizza has become the absolute most boring thing in your life. You fell in love your first day on the job. The way the dough flew gracefully through the air, the sauce glided across like scissors through laminated paper. It was also your favorite dinner. You loved buffalo chicken, pepperoni, plain: a flawless food.
On Tuesday you punch in your time card at the Route 59 Pizza Hut. You’ve just put on your apron when you’re boss, Mr. Cartwright, blocks the door to the kitchen.
“Morning Bluewater,” he booms. You try to tell him that your name is Bloomberg and it’s 3 pm but Cartwright isn’t in a listening-to-employees mood, now or ever.
“Bluewater, pizza has become the absolute most boring thing in America. Delicious, sure, but done so often and always the same. Anyhow, a young lad at the Route 76 branch down in Virginia came up with a solution to set our pizza apart from the competition.” You brace yourself for what is sure to be a useless innovation. “Bluewater, we’re now proudly serving the world’s only crustless pizza!” Yep, you called it. “And better yet, we’ve jacked up the price by $6.99 for a ‘labor fee’, it’s genius! So just follow these instructions,” he hands you a packet that seems unnecessarily large, “and remember that all employees must wash hands before returning to work.” Satisfied with another of his long, pointless monologues, Mr. Cartwright leaves you in your kitchen to begin another day’s work.
At your branch there are three waitresses, all teenage girls from the local high school. The tallest one wears an excessive amount of makeup and flirts with you every chance she gets. The loudest one has curly hair and a huge set of metal braces that devour her unfortunate face. The third is the “smartest”. Her hobbies include bragging about her advanced level high school classes to anyone who will listen and walking like she has a penny wedged where the sunlight does not shine. You try your best to make as little contact with them as possible during a normal work day.
The busboy’s name is Chad and he is far less irritating than the ugly stepsisters. Chad wears a white bandana and perpetually smells like weed, but he’s a good kid and you’ve smoked with him a few times out back by the dumpster. Chad can get a bit lazy at times, but for the most part he keeps the tables clean. You were a lot like Chad in high school so you know there’s hope for the kid.
You only have one regular customer, you work at a chain pizza restaurant after all. Herb Reynolds turned 87 this year. Each day he comes for dinner at 4:10 in the afternoon. You’re alerted of his arrival before the door opens by the loud one yelling his name with false enthusiasm in hopes of getting a higher tip. You find her desperate ritual pointless because tired old men don’t tip well no matter how nice you pretend to be. Herb gets chicken noodle soup and he is the only reason it is still on the menu.
Shockingly, the demand for crustless pizza is quite high and you slave away all day before the fiery infernos of dough and sauce you’ve become far too well acquainted with. At long last your wristwatch beeps telling you it is 10 o’clock. Time to punch out.
You move hastily to complete the last instruction in the packet for the crustless pizza. You haul 5 large trash bags full of detached crusts to the dumpster out back. For a fleeting moment you stare at the bags and think to yourself what a great waste all all that dough has gone to. You think maybe you should suggest to Mr. Cartwright that it would be less wasteful to just make the pizza without the crusts rather than making regular pizzas and throwing out their crusts. Your watch beeps again. 10:15. If you hurry you’ll be able to catch the 11 o’clock football highlights. You punch out and drive home.
