Spinning the Size of Pizza

Amy’s tummy was feeling snarky the other day, so I was on my own for dinner.

We were out of hot dogs. The milk supply was too low for a couple of bowls of cereal. The weather was too cold and rainy to go out for burgers or tacos.

What to do?

I could cook. Yeah. Right.

Ah ha - Pizza! And the pizza place delivers!

Calling in my order reminded me of the “unique” (ie: weird) way pizza places identify the pizzas they serve.

Back in my bachelor days, I lived on pizza. In the days before the “personal pan” size, an 8-slice small pizza filled me up. The place I would usually call served a small, a medium and a large. One day, the teenager on the end of the line said, “We don’t have ‘Small’ anymore. We now only have ‘Medium’ and ‘Large’.”

“That’s not logically possible,” I responded. “When you take away one of the ends (in this case the small), then the middle becomes that particular end.”

She didn’t understand.

I played the “Befuddle the Pizza Kid” game a few times until I just started ordering a medium pizza. Everything was fine, until the day I called a different pizza place for a change of pace.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have ‘Medium’ here,” I heard over the phone. “We just have ‘Small’, ‘Large’ and ‘Extra-Large’.”

Poor Spike

Though it happened more than 25 years ago, the memory is so vivid it feels like today.

It was the first warm day of spring and I celebrated by taking a drive over the rolling hills of southern Indiana.

The windows in the car were down; the wind was blowing through my hair; the volume on the radio was up; and I was cruisin’.

As I crested one of the hills, I noticed a brown and black German shepherd resting “sphinx-like” in front of a white farm house at the top of the next hill.

I admit I was paying more attention to the wind and radio than on my driving, because I did not anticipate the horrible sound and the violent jolt of my car running over something big. When the car came to a screeching stop, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that brown and black German shepherd lying dead on the road behind me.

The demure elderly lady that answered the front door of the farmhouse wept as I described what happened. She told me the dog’s name was Spike and he had been her sole companion since her husband passed away a few years earlier. When she regained her composure, she asked if my car was damaged in the collision. I told her the plastic grill was broken, but my damage did not compare to the damage I caused her. Still she insisted on doing something.

She said she did not have a lot of money, but if I would come inside she would repay me in “personal favors.” I was stunned. I did not expect such a brazen proposition from this grandmotherly old lady.

Just then, a sheriff deputy walked up the front walk asking whose car was stopped in the middle of the road. I told him I had run over her dog and she had just seduced me.

“Oh, cool. Can I watch?” he responded.

Now I was flabbergasted. I told the two of them they were crazy (a couple of choice four-letter words were part of that statement) and that I was getting out of there. But they started following me. I walked faster and they walked faster. I started to run and they started to run. I have to admit that old lady was rather fleet of foot.

As I was looking back over my right shoulder, I tripped over dead Spike and fell to the ground. The old lady grabbed my left ankle and started dragging me back toward the house.

“Let go of me, woman,” I screamed. “You’re pulling my leg!”

Just like I’m pulling yours right now.

April Fools!