The purchasing agent at work, Lynn, scours sales ads for cheap coke deals, clips coupons and beats out other grocery shoppers for the first selection on canned soft drinks.

I don’t know this, but I suspect she’s probably a Black Friday beast shopper, the kind where two women wrestle in a store aisle over the last available Zappy Dappy Duck for kids.

Anyway, then Tammy stocks the office fridge and sells cokes for 50 cents a pop. Every 8 or 9 months, there’s enough surplus money in the office “coke fund” for a “pizza party”.

Tammy sent out an electronic sticky note that popped up on my computer screen. It was an interoffice post it note saying Thursday at lunch was a Pizza Party. At the bottom she wrote, “Let me know what you would like.”

Since she interrupted my real work with a pizza note, I fired back a request.

Double veggie, unwashed mushrooms, with those salty little fish on there and a SPAM stuffed crust.

The response was immediate. “I’m on it… you want that thin or reg crust? Large or XL?”

Thin, like my waist line…and personal pan size. I don’t want Gene (a SPAM eating machine guy) eating all the SPAM filled crust.

No response.

Not even lol. 

Mission accomplished.

Back to work.

I didn’t think about it again. Besides, she was going to get what she wanted anyway.

Pizza is a “it doesn’t matter food”. They all taste pretty much the same, and on top of it, (no pun intended) it’s as salty as a lick cube for cattle.

That wasn’t the case in my younger years. No siree!

In college, a group of us went to Mr. Gatti’s pizza once a week. An ALL you can eat buffet!!

To a bunch of college guys with metabolisms higher than their IQs, it was a no brainer! Plop down a few dollars and try to eat the buffet into bankruptcy.

Like everything else, it turned into a competition. We came up with never-solid, ever-changing rules, like one thick crust piece counts the same as two thin pieces, but salad doesn’t count at all.

Also, someone else had to count how many pieces you ate. Not me, but those other guys were cheaters, true pizza shysters!

The biggest rule was that the first two guys to tap out had to buy everybody else’s pizza that night! 

Not only were we poor measly college students trying to eke out a living in the cold cruel world, we were cheapskates!

That’s like mixing oil and water, Clorox and ammonia, baking soda and vinegar. Hungry and chintzy just don’t jell.

Anyway, ain’t none of us smrt kallage boys wanted to pay for some other dimwit’s pizza!   

We’d eat until our eyes glazed over. You couldn’t move, just sit there, like a mouth breathing beached whale with pale cheeks. 

If two guys hadn’t tapped out by then, it got intense! Every bite was like shoving a gallon of dirt into a teaspoon sized bottle. 

And you dared not bump someone’s stomach! It would be like Mount St. Helen’s volcano erupting!

In fact, if one of us was stabbed, he’d just bleed marinara sauce.

One day part of the college football team came in.  An offensive lineman ate so much pizza from the buffet that the manager went to their table and tried to ban him from coming back. 

A philosophical debate started about whether “All You Can Eat” on the sign outside really meant “All You Can Eat” physically inside.

Chants from tables of other college students broke out, “Let him eat! Let him eat!”

Meanwhile, a nerdy student, a really skinny guy who looked like he had a tapeworm, started mumbling about false advertising.

At the football table, another player who spoke and acted a tad slower between the ears than the others, began saying this was a violation of their constitutional rights.

Psft! Whatever.

It was fun to watch the confrontation though. The college aged manager finally relented and allowed him to stay, no ban. In turn, the football player agreed to eat all of his crust next time.

Experiences of stuff your face with pizza and then feel bad all the next day didn’t leave pizza on my Maslow hierarchy of needs chart.    

So an office pizza party? Well, I may just have salad that doesn’t count, thank you very much!

When leaving early last Thursday to go to another plant, I wrote out on the board until 1:00 PM.

Tammy asked, “You’re not going to be here at lunch for pizza?”

Then Lynn glanced up with a well that just beats all I’ve ever seen look on her face.

“But what about your pizza?”

“What pizza?”

“The pizza we MADE for you!?”

(Editor’s note … have you ever noticed the only difference between ‘mad’ and ‘made’ is just the letter ‘e’?? Word to the wise — don’t let anyone ‘mad’ at you ‘made’ you anything!)

Now I was confused, at least until Tammy pulled out a thin crust, homemade, hot out of the oven, double veggie with unwashed mushrooms, anchovy covered personal pan pizza with a SPAM stuffed crust!!

My mouth was open wider than a Venus fly trap!

Tammy threw her arm on her hip, and wagging her head and finger from side to side said, “You gotta eat what you ordered!”

Lynn jumped in saying she had all the ingredients and put the pizza together the night before so it would be fresh baked today.

It’s not often, but sometimes, I’m surprised and caught completely flat footed. This was sometimes.

“Oh. Well, thank you, Lynn. Although thank you isn’t really what I’m thinking.”

“Yep!” she proudly said, “I was putting it together last night and Kevin (her husband) asked what I was making us for supper. I told him what I was doing and he didn’t want any part of it, so he had a bowl of frosted shredded wheat for supper!”

She went on that he was fine with it “because he still remembers Leon’s retirement party when you swapped his bigger piece of chocolate cheesecake for your strawberry cheesecake and ate it. He loves cheesecake, but he’s allergic to strawberries! He still talks about that cheesecake!”

Allergic?

I didn’t know he was allergic to strawberries.

I feel really bad about that now! I mean, if I had known he was allergic to strawberries, I would’ve eaten that piece too!

There’s no good reason to waste cheesecake!

Wink, wink — it was totally worth it! At the semi-formal dinner, I licked my fork and ran it all over his piece of chocolate cheesecake before he could say anything!

It was sooo good!

Hey, I thought we were tight again, but I guess he thinks I deserve SPAM filled crust!

Come on, Kevin! That was like, 7 years ago! Let it go, man! Let it go!

Flabbergasted I said, “I can’t believe y’all made that!”

Tammy, looking smug and sassy said, “Be careful what you order!!”

She made the point with an exclamation mark, punctuated with a drumroll!

I missed the pizza party, but they made sure that pizza was waiting when I came back.

I was hoping Gene would at least eat all the SPAM stuffed crust. He thinks SPAM is a major food group, but no! He just nibbled on one piece.

I bet he didn’t even swallow. Probably spit it out too!

All but one slice of the pizza was there.

It would have been a really good time for Jesus to come back!

Or, maybe fake a seizure.

Instead, I held my nose, and took my medicine.

I got a piece and ate it in front of them. Told them it was one of the best things I’d ever eaten. Told them I was going to sell the recipe to Pizza Hut and make a fortune.

To make it look sincere, I got a second piece and pretended to enjoy the wretched Italian pie!

You know, it takes a big man to admit his mistakes.

Well, I lied. I lied the whole time about it being good. Lied like a dog going to Hades!

Those anchovies, holy sardine wannabes! It totally tasted like a salty cattle cube with gas station sushi on top!!

Next office pizza party?

Easy.

Pepperoni, please. Just, pepperoni.