Down the Rabbit Hole

It's not often that I really lose my temper. In fact the older I get, the more rare it is. However when I do, it's not very pretty. Let me set the scene for you.

It was the end of a busy week. I had gotten about three hours sleep the night before, having been out until after 3 a.m. driving kids home from an after grad party. The kitchen was piled high with dishes from last night and this morning, with no way to wash them given the situation with our hot water heater.

I don't usually think of ordering pizza for dinner: the ones you get up here are almost always too greasy, with too much stuff on them. I much prefer to make my own. But I didn't have the energy, so I phoned up one of the pizza joints in town and placed my order: two large - one vegetarian and one for the meat lovers in the family. They told me the food would be ready for pick up in 25 minutes.

Twenty five minutes exactly I walked in the door to pick up the pizzas. After a rather long wait, I got to the counter, only to find out they'd lost my order. They had a slew of questions for me while they hunted around for my food: what kind of pizzas had I ordered, when had I ordered them, what was my phone number....questions that were punctuated with, "No, we don't have any orders like that." I asked them to check again. I told them that a woman had taken my order and asked the only two women who were working if they remembered me calling. They both said they couldn't be expected to remember every customer.

An offer was made to place my order now, if I would wait 20 minutes. No I would not! I was already late for picking Alan up from work, and I was peeved at their screw up. I said never mind and left, drove up the street, ordered two pizzas from the competition, picked Alan up, drove him home, and drove back for the pizzas.

I had almost arrived back home when I got a call from the first pizza place, asking me in a rather aggrieved voice when I was going to pick up my pizzas. I started to laugh, and said I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I explained that I had ordered the pizzas but they had lost my order so I had gone somewhere else.

The woman tried again. "Well the pizzas have been sitting here for quite some time. When are you going to pick them up?"

I took a deep breath, and asked if she didn't remember talking to me about the fact that they had lost my order. She denied knowing anything about that, and was getting more and more irritated with me.

Suddenly a sort of switch went off in my head and I yelled into the phone, "YOU PEOPLE MUST BE ON DRUGS!!!"

There was a short pause. Then, flatly, "We are not on drugs. Don't come back here again." CLICK.

I felt somewhat like I had been pulled down the rabbit hole and been forced to have tea with the Mad Hatter. No, I shouldn't have made the drug comment. It was rude and I know I should call back and apologize. But I'm not done stewing yet.

And the pizzas from the second restaurant? They were greasy with too much in the way of toppings. Next time a bowl of cold cereal might be the better option!