Saturday, October 08, 2005
Fresh from the Today Can't Get Any Worse files: the pizza man. So I'm working to deadline on a Saturday night instead of going to the party I've been invited to, and I'm thinking, "Gee, I could go a pizza." So I call up our local. I have stuck loyally with this shop since I've lived here, even though they don't deserve my custom. Their pizza is ordinary, their pasta worse (they actually have a dish called Spaghetti Pizza which is spag bol on top of a ham and cheese pizza base), and a while ago it was taken over by new owners who keep hiking the prices and have discontinued half the menu items.
But it's our closest pizza shop. So I grab a flyer and call up. "Have you still got the $11 pizza and soft drink delivery special?"
"No, it's now $13.20."
Pause. "Okay, I can swing that, can I have a Meat Lovers and a bottle of lemonade, please?"
"That will be 45 minutes."
45 minutes! I was pretty hungry since the manslave cleaned out our refrigerator. But okay, it was a Saturday night... so I agreed and got stuck into my work. Time flew, and it seemed like only 42 minutes later that our doorbell rang. I grabbed a $20 note and opened the door to a grinning, gnome-like delivery man with half his front teeth missing. He claimed to have no change, and said he'd take my money and bring me my change "some other time".
This sounded dubious to me under any circumstances. Given that I am 'freelance' and am shortly going to be pouring all my cash into an automobile-related farce, I was reluctant to gift $7-odd to some random pizza man simply on the promise that he might be back "some other time". Plus, I was still pissed off at the cabbie who'd pulled a similar "no change" trick on me a couple of weeks ago (and had also propositioned me). Isn't it the job of these people to make sure they have change?
So I firmly explained, "No, I'm not giving you any extra money."
He grinned and said, "Nah, I don't want any extra, I'll just come back some other time."
This conversation went on in a ping-pong vein for a bit, neither of us understanding what the other was saying, so I decided to spell it out for him.
"I'm not going to give you $20 when my pizza only cost $13.20 and I don't even know if you're going to come back with my change."
Suddenly the pizza man snapped and slammed my screen door in my face, shouting, "Keep ya fucken pizza then, ya cocksucking cunt!"
He then stomped away screeching other inventive epithets along the lines of "Ya cheap motherfucken scrag" and "ya stupid bitch". I am not really doing him justice here, because I was actually quite impressed by the range of his swearing vocabulary.
I was actually quite shaken, but I called up the pizza place straight away and explained the situation to the guy who answered the phone, including the information that I would never be ordering from his pizza shop again. He seemed flustered and said he would call me back. I was sitting there munching on the pizza when he called, saying that he had spoken with the driver and there had been a "misunderstanding". I am still unclear what their policy is when the driver doesn't have enough change, but surely they ought to invest in a driver who can explain it clearly?
"That's nice, but I'm disinclined to pay when the driver starts calling me a cocksucking cunt," I said primly, with my mouth full of pizza. "I don't like having obscenities shouted at me. It's absolutely unacceptable."
The guy started apologising profusely, saying he had spoken to the driver and how sorry he was about the swearing. I said, "I'm glad to hear it. Goodbye," and hung up.
And meanwhile, this toothless maniac knows where I live. Now, back to work for me.
But it's our closest pizza shop. So I grab a flyer and call up. "Have you still got the $11 pizza and soft drink delivery special?"
"No, it's now $13.20."
Pause. "Okay, I can swing that, can I have a Meat Lovers and a bottle of lemonade, please?"
"That will be 45 minutes."
45 minutes! I was pretty hungry since the manslave cleaned out our refrigerator. But okay, it was a Saturday night... so I agreed and got stuck into my work. Time flew, and it seemed like only 42 minutes later that our doorbell rang. I grabbed a $20 note and opened the door to a grinning, gnome-like delivery man with half his front teeth missing. He claimed to have no change, and said he'd take my money and bring me my change "some other time".
This sounded dubious to me under any circumstances. Given that I am 'freelance' and am shortly going to be pouring all my cash into an automobile-related farce, I was reluctant to gift $7-odd to some random pizza man simply on the promise that he might be back "some other time". Plus, I was still pissed off at the cabbie who'd pulled a similar "no change" trick on me a couple of weeks ago (and had also propositioned me). Isn't it the job of these people to make sure they have change?
So I firmly explained, "No, I'm not giving you any extra money."
He grinned and said, "Nah, I don't want any extra, I'll just come back some other time."
This conversation went on in a ping-pong vein for a bit, neither of us understanding what the other was saying, so I decided to spell it out for him.
"I'm not going to give you $20 when my pizza only cost $13.20 and I don't even know if you're going to come back with my change."
Suddenly the pizza man snapped and slammed my screen door in my face, shouting, "Keep ya fucken pizza then, ya cocksucking cunt!"
He then stomped away screeching other inventive epithets along the lines of "Ya cheap motherfucken scrag" and "ya stupid bitch". I am not really doing him justice here, because I was actually quite impressed by the range of his swearing vocabulary.
I was actually quite shaken, but I called up the pizza place straight away and explained the situation to the guy who answered the phone, including the information that I would never be ordering from his pizza shop again. He seemed flustered and said he would call me back. I was sitting there munching on the pizza when he called, saying that he had spoken with the driver and there had been a "misunderstanding". I am still unclear what their policy is when the driver doesn't have enough change, but surely they ought to invest in a driver who can explain it clearly?
"That's nice, but I'm disinclined to pay when the driver starts calling me a cocksucking cunt," I said primly, with my mouth full of pizza. "I don't like having obscenities shouted at me. It's absolutely unacceptable."
The guy started apologising profusely, saying he had spoken to the driver and how sorry he was about the swearing. I said, "I'm glad to hear it. Goodbye," and hung up.
And meanwhile, this toothless maniac knows where I live. Now, back to work for me.
