Bad Pizza, Man! - Really, Really, Bad Pizza

The summer of 2012 has been one of the hottest on record in Northeast Ohio.  During most extremely hot summers, there is that one time, that one day, when you are so hot or uncomfortable that it burns (a very appropriate term here) into your long-term memory.

This is my “hottest” memory of the scorching summer of 2012.  It was a Friday and the temperature had reached 98 degrees.  I called my favorite pizza place after work as I often do on a Friday, and ordered two, two-topping pizzas.  I was told the order would be ready in 30 minutes which is longer than the standard 20 minute wait.  So I knew that they were busier than normal.  What I didn’t know is that because of the 98 degree heat, everyone and their brother decided not to cook dinner but was ordering pizza instead.

I got to the pizza joint early and there was only one customer waiting so I decided to stay in my car for a while because I assumed that it would be hot inside.  I assumed correctly because the temperature inside had to be near 90 degrees (even with air conditioning) and the air was thick with pizza scent.  It was so thick it was difficult to even breathe.  And this was because of the massive amount of pizza orders that came in right after mine.  Every oven was baking.  The employees were scrambling like mad to make and bake the pizzas. 

The first person in line got her order.  But by now there were five people in line behind me.  They had not been able to wait on me because they were still rushing to make all the pizzas. I had already been waiting five minutes in the Italian sauna.  Sweat was running off my shaved head and dripping profusely off my chin.  I was very hungry and the think smell of baking pizzas was strangely appetizing and nauseating at the same time.  After waiting ten minutes I thought I could die of pepperoni fume asphyxiation.  It was so uncomfortable that I did consider leaving at one point, but I stayed since I still needed something for dinner.

At the 15 minute mark the guy asked who had “two large”, I gave him my name, he checked the bill and I was on my way.  You bet the car air conditioner was fully cranked on my drive home.

When my wife opened the first box she exclaimed, “What did you order?”

“The usual”, I replied.

“Well this is not it!” she declared.

Now we are generally not that picky when it comes to pizza toppings.  I would guess that 99% of pizza topping combinations would be acceptable to us.  Heck if there were three or more standard toppings on the pizza, I would have even come out ahead.  Of course this is what would happen to normal people; it’s not what happens to me.  I will never run out of topics for this blog because my life is so wacked out.

The first pizza contained jalapenos.  Just jalapenos. Lots of jalapenos. Imagine a peperoni pizza covered edge to edge in peperoni, but instead of peperoni, it is covered with sliced jalapenos!   I do like jalapenos, so to show my wife this wasn’t a total disaster I tried to eat the super jalapeno pizza.  I was able to get one piece down and part of the second before I gave up.  This wasn’t just bad pizza, it was nasty pizza. It was the nastiest pizza I have ever eaten in my life. And it made one nasty trip through my body causing issues at every stop.  It inflamed my taste buds, it irritated my stomach lining and it was not too kind to my hemorrhoids upon departure. 

The second pizza was a plain without cheese.  Both pizzas were undercooked, because of course my pizzas were supposed to come out of the oven before these pizzas from hell.  My wife and daughter were able to eat some of the partially cooked dough with tomato sauce (the second pizza).  So we did not starve and I do realize that there are starving people in Africa, but they probably would not have eaten the super jalapeno pizza either.

 

What type of person orders these types of weird pizzas?  Using my Lieutenant Columbo detective skills I deduced it was a Hispanic vegetarian.  I am glad that we live in a country where Hispanic vegetarians have the freedom and the opportunity to order super jalapeno pizzas, but why, oh, why, did I have to be given this one?

However as disappointed as I was to receive these pizzas, the Hispanic vegetarian had to be even more disappointed to get mine.  He could not have been very happy with my sausage-bacon and pepperoni-ground beef pizzas.  Ironically while his pizzas were barely edible for me, my pizzas were totally inedible for him.  That’s bad pizza.  Bad, bad, pizza in the hot summer of 2012.

Postlude:  I kept my receipt and after explaining the super jalapeno screw up, the pizza parlor graciously gave be a credit for two pizzas, which of course I took care to order on a much cooler Friday.