by phoenixtx (Thu Jan 21, 2010)
One afternoon I decided to treat myself,
and order a small personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut.
The apartment buzzer
eventually buzzed, and I opened the door, eager for my calorific, cheesy treat.
I thanked the pizza delivery man, tipped him, and closed the door. Settling
down at my desk to eat, my cell phone rang. It was a number I didn't recognize,
but I answered it anyway. It was Pizza Boy.
He introduced himself, saying his
name, and that he had just delivered a pizza to me. He continued on, speaking
rapidly, saying that I had the smile of an angel; I was just beautiful! He knew
he shouldn't have called, he said, as it was against store policy. But he just
couldn't help himself. I was a little creeped out, yet intrigued. A date with
the pizza boy. That certainly sounded... well, not every girl did that, outside
of ‘adult movies’ (and those aren't exactly dates).
A few hours later, he showed up at my door,
still in his uniform, little red hat and all. The smell of pepperoni pizza was
heavy on him, and I was a vegetarian at the time. Strike one (though not
entirely his fault).
Arriving at his little beater-of-a-Chevy, I opened the
door and was hit with a waft of breadsticks and old pizza. Not quite an
aphrodisiac, that. But, I soldiered on. We didn't have any real plans, and he
didn't seem to have much money to spend on a date, so he decided it would be a
good idea to take me to a little area down by a nearby lake. It was the end of
December, nearing Christmas, and so it was quite dark at only 7pm. I was
sitting in a car, with a stranger, at a boat ramp, and no one knew where I was.
It was not one of my smarter moments.
It did not take long for me to discover why
he was single. He was, to put it mildly, crazy in the head. He told me multiple
times that I had the smile of an angel. Later in the evening, I learned why
this was so important to him: His grandfather had told him that he would find a
woman with the smile of an angel, and that woman should be his wife. And
wouldn't you know it, I just happened to be that angel. Lucky, lucky me. That's
kind of a lot to take in on the first date. There was more. He told me about an
ex (whether wife or girlfriend, I forget) that was in jail, and another ex that
was currently in a psychiatric ward. Of course, he had children, too. Strike
two.
After I informed my date that I was not
interested in ever having children - or raising someone else's children - Pizza
Boy told me that was okay, and if I didn't want kids, well, he would get rid of
them for me. He didn't say how he would get rid of them, which raised all sorts
of troubling questions in my mind. Strike three!
I was on a date with a man who would dump
his kids for me, possibly made his ex's crazy, and was rather loco himself. It
was time to evaluate why I had thought this was a good idea... I asked to be
taken home, and thought that would be the end of things. It wasn't - in fact it
would take a few weeks for him to get the message.
Alas. It took a long while
before I could summon up the courage to order a pizza again. To this day, when
they ask me if there’s anything else I want with my pizza, I politely but
firmly decline.
