8/14/07

The pizza quandary

Last night I drank from every category in the morning-after fuzzy tooth spectrum: scotch, Irish whiskey, cheap beer, and good beer.

I woke up after a surprisingly good night of sleep on Nick's couch, which I slept on for fear of the rapists and grifters that we suspect cruise the streets of the village at 4 a.m., and walked home, still kind of loaded, which would have been pretty fun if the sun hadn't been hitting me with hot hammers the whole way. Alliteration hooooo!

I got home and popped some Excedrin, which I've fallen in love with lately. Two pills, 500 milligrams of aspirin, 500 milligrams of acetaminophen, 130 milligrams of caffeine. They pack theoretical wallop, those little gelcaps do.

I chugged a glass of water with my pills and felt it slosh around in my tummy. I realized how hungry I was. I haven't really managed to explore very much of my area since I moved. I googled my shit, and I was disappointed enough to give up when I found out that the restaurant closest to my building is a "cheeky" French place that specializes in foies gras (pâté of Cognac-marinated goose liver and truffles, EWWWWWW) and a nice chicken mousse.

I don't understand the flavored mousse thing.

It's a mousse, right?

Ok.

I whipped it all up, it's all pasty and light.

Ok.

And it tastes like chicken.

Oh, fabulous!

The website that reviewed the restaurant gave it a 13/20. In the "price" category, it gave $$$ out of a possible $$$$$. Wha?

So I decided I would order a pizza. But I've been living in a college town for way too long, because there's just no way I'm going to pay $12 for a large, one-topping pizza. That's just never going to happen.

Josh and I theorized this quandary in terms of the DPS (Dollars per Slice). Ideally, you want a DPS of less than 1 in any situation where you're buying pizza slices in bulk (i.e., a pizza). DPS=1 can be seen as a fair and fungible (I've never gotten to use the word "fungible" before!) pizza equation -- both parties can walk away satisfied with that transaction, secure in the knowledge that they haven't been cheated. But in they city, they try to hose you. They try to play you for a punk. All they want to do is suck you up and bleed you dry.

But not me, though. I'm no rube to be chewed up by the system. On the Papa Johns website, I found a link for a special deal. Three large, one-topping pizzas for $21.99. That's a pre-tax, pre-tip DPS of just under 1.

This led Josh to say, "That's good DPS. You can't get DPS like that, usually."

I thought that was funny.

So, after about an hour of agonized debate over whether or not I should order three pizzas, therewith conveying my credit card information over a stolen internet connection (does anyone know if this is safe?), for nearly thirty bucks, I went ahead and did it. And I tipped the guy 15%, in addition to the $1.60 "delivery fee" that Papa John's imposes. That motherfucker looks so honest in the commercials, you know? Like all he wants is to give you the best goddamn pizza you've ever eaten, and if he could do it for free, he would. And there lies the game!

Capitalism.

But I ordered the pizzas, thinking to myself, if four pieces of pizza is a meal, and there are eight pieces of pizza in a pizza, I'll have six meals, which should sustain me for three days, three blissful days of nothing but pizza. A pizza-fueled Lost Weekend. A pizza bender.

After thirty minutes, I went down to the lobby to wait for the delivery guy, and when he came, and with him my pizza, I charged back to my room with boyish, unbridled enthusiasm, ducking out of the way of doormen who popped out at me like video game villains from behind pillars and around corners, and all of them making the same crack -- "you throwin' a pizza party?" I tucked my chin, looked at my shoes, and charged past, yelling out "HAVE A GOOD ONE!" every fifteen seconds to no one in particular to make it clear that I would not be stopped to chat. I, intent on one thing: the immediate and voluminous consumption of hot pizza with a generous slathering of garlic butter sauce.

Now, two hours later, I've got two and a quarter pizzas left, and I'm so fucking sick of pizza.

And I have learned a lesson. It's a lesson of economics, of philosophy, of definition and epistemology, but mostly it's a lesson of the spirit. That lesson is this.

There are hidden costs in the DPS. For some pizza, you pay with more than dollars.

2 comments:

jackanapes said...

unbelievable. 3 pizzas. one can only make a decision like that if trapped in the retardation of a hunger-coma.

as for credit card info over pirated internet, it should be safe, since any time you have to give that information over the internet, it should be done via a secure site, i.e., the people you order from guarantee safety, and it has little to do with your internet connection. well, unless you have some hi-tech motherfucking hackers tracking every keystroke you type, in which case you'd be fucked with or without pirated internet.

CircleGetSquare said...

being quoted in this blog is easily the highlight of my day. it's kinda like getting a shout out from somebody on stage at a rock show.