The Pizza Order

The Pizza Order

It was like an itch in her back that needed to be scratched. One she couldn’t reach, and one that wouldn’t go away until it was tended to. Alice blamed it on the recurring TV commercial for stuffed crust pizza. Oozing cheese bubbling through rolled dough edges, the luscious spread of tomato sauce, freshly sliced pepperoni, mushrooms, and then of course the clincher. Who on God’s Green Earth, could ignore the smell of freshly cooked bacon?

She inhaled the imagined scent, even though it was just on her flat screen TV with closed captioning for the hearing impaired. The advertisement had interrupted her back-to-back reruns of Crime Scene Investigations, aka CSI, three times in the last hour. Alice knew there would be no sleep for her until the urge was satisfied.

Just one problem; Alice carefully poured the contents of her purse on the dining room table. Two would be great, but really I just need one, she thought. Damn, nothing there. It was ten o’clock at night and her hearing aid batteries had just given up the ghost. A search through the bathroom cupboard also yielded no results. A phone order was out of the question.

“No worries,” she muttered whilst pushing the wheeled walker towards her computer. “I’ll just order online. How hard can it be?”

She powered up, mentally thanked her granddaughter for keeping her in the techno generation and waited for the screen to open. Ah, yes…the internet. It was a vast garbage pit of anything and everything, people sharing too much personal information on social websites’, unwelcomed advertisements for products she had no use for and those that challenged her creative thinking. Like the one about 69 uses for a cucumber. And then of course there was the spam folder attached to her e-mail address.

Alice had opened it once. ‘Hot man seeking older, established woman,’ read the message. Her response would have been ‘old woman thinks hot guy probably lives in Timbuktu and wants to bilk her out of life savings.’ So instead, she’d hit the delete button as per her granddaughter’s advice to ignore spam.

Alice typed in a few search instructions and was rewarded with a pizza banner that flashed across the top of her screen. It looked simple enough. She entered her address to locate the nearest store and pressed the send button.

‘There was an error in locating your address. Did you forget to include your phone number?’

Okay, maybe she had. It was time to try again. Were you supposed to leave spaces for the phone number? Then she noticed the section for apartment or unit number. It read apt., hotel, dorm or offioe? Alice might be deaf, but she sure as hell wasn’t blind. As a retired English school teacher, misspelled words were not acceptable, but as her stomach grumbled, she chose to forgive the web creator.

She re-entered the demographics, the computer auto-populated the information, and not in the correct spaces. After a few more goes, Alice’s arthritic fingers hit the submit button.

‘Error locating your address,’ the message read. ‘Adjust your search criteria or try again later.’

The phrase, try again later, was akin to raising a red flag in front of a bull. As a teacher, Alice had always encouraged her students to avoid clichés when writing. However, in this case it seemed appropriate and besides she wasn’t writing. If this company didn’t want her business, another one surely would. She could and would rise to the challenge. Damn the stuffed crust! There was more than one pizza company to order from. But first, fuel would be required!

What is pizza without wine? Alice filled a glass from the box of Chardonnay in her fridge, placed it in the cup holder on her walker and returned to the computer.

Another site had already popped up.

‘Please enter your user name and password. If you don’t already have a profile, click here to create one.’ A tap of her forefinger on the mouse, and she was on. Apparently this pizza conglomeration wanted to know if you’re male/female and what age category you’re in. They also requested an e-mail address. Presumably, they’d send her coupons, or then again share her address with god knows who. More spam from the hot dude looking for love. Realistically, did it matter how old or what gender she was? She was just trying to order a flipping pizza!!!

She recalled when life was simpler. All you needed was a book to record name, address and phone number. Now Alice owned an internet address & password logbook courtesy of her granddaughter, a cell phone with something called “apps” that had miniature pictures that she couldn’t see even with her reading glasses.

Alice normally sipped wine, but the last pizza companies’ message deserved a gulp as she hit ‘exit.’

The third time’s a charm or so she’d heard. She was also familiar with the phrase, three strikes and you’re out. The next pizza site greeted her with ‘Hey there.’

“Back at ya,” she said aloud. At any rate they weren’t asking for a profile. Once again, she entered the demographics and this time with no problem.

‘You’re on the way,’ the screen prompted. ‘Do you want to select a pizza from our menu or create your own?’

Since Alice liked extra cheese on her pizza, she hit the button for create your own and was rewarded with a display of options. A sip of wine later left her with more decisions to make.

‘Normal cheese or light cheese?’

Since extra wasn’t an option she hit the normal button twice. That should work, shouldn’t it? Double cheese would be perfect!

Next, she tapped the pepperoni button. ‘Brooklyn or normal’ was the prompt. Was this a test, she wondered? Alice wasn’t sure what the difference was, Brooklyn was at least spelled correctly. She pressed the button and took another sip of wine. A few more toppings, some added anchovies and the order was done.

‘You’re almost there. Before checking out would you like to donate to the local dairy farmers association?’

This had been a good experience up until now. Alice had grown up on a dairy farm in south western Ontario, knew how to hand milk a cow and was there when pipe line milking systems came in. As much as she supported farmers, she was just trying to order a damn pizza!

Alice entered her credit card number, clicked on the grocery cart icon and submitted. No donation included.

‘Your order has been received and should arrive in the next 45 minutes. You can watch the progress by clicking on the link below.’

Alice checked her watch. So far the entire process from initial search to now, had taken over an hour. She took another sip of wine, giggled, ignored the splash that fell on her keyboard and clicked on the link.

A toolbar showed up at the bottom of her screen. ‘Tracker form,’ it said. ‘Dhruv just put your order in the oven. We’re firing it up!’

Perfect, thought Alice. Besides it was time for a wine refill. She weaved her walker into the kitchen and on the way back from the fridge, narrowly avoided running over her cat’s tail, and settled once again in front of her computer.

According to the screen, approximately 15 minutes had passed and her pizza was now almost done. As the bar turned from green to orange to red, she hoped it wasn’t burned. Crispy crust was not on her list when she ordered.

The next tracker form message read ‘Quality Check.’ What the hell was that all about? Did it mean they did a taste test? Would there be a bite out of her pizza?

Then in the next minute, the communication read ‘Your order is out for delivery. Besin just left the store.’

Thirty minutes passed. Alice was starting to feel frantic for the delivery guy. What would happen if it wasn’t delivered on time? Would he be penalized for being late? What if he got stuck in traffic, or even worse an accident? How much should she tip him? Was it all worth it just for a piece of dough with sauce, meat, cheese and bacon for an old lady with an itch in her back?

Relief flooded through her when her doorbell buzzed. A hot pizza with anchovies rested in a cardboard box on her kitchen counter. It smelled great, but there were just a couple of problems. The rolled dough edges on her $30 pizza were empty and apparently double clicking on normal cheese, did not translate into extra mozzarella. Alice half heartedly teased out a slice and returned to the CSI marathon on her TV. The first couple of bites were okay. But then, she watched entranced as Gil Grissom and the team from CSI pulled body parts out of a pizza oven.

Charred flesh and bones were placed in labeled bags. No evidence of cheese or bacon, she noticed. The slice, minus the bites’ was left untouched on her plate. She finished her wine.

Before going to bed, Alice found a pen and wrote one message in large letters on the magnetized ‘To Do’ list on her fridge.

Remove pizza from my diet. Buy a back scratcher instead!