It begins as soon as you walk through the door. An extreme vertigo takes over as the screaming children pass back and forth between your legs as you try to not to trip on their shoelaces. You stumble your way to the counter and pay for the all you can eat buffet and a water. Your handed a half-assed smile and a clear plastic glass signifying that you didn’t pay $1.75 for your drink. Shame on you. You grab a red plastic tray and move onward down the line o’pizza. You can only eat 5 slices of pizza, so you go ahead and pick up 4 pieces. You know good and well that the buffet will still be around if and when it comes time for that 5th slice. The guy in front of you in line doesn’t know this though. He thinks that the pizza will turn into asparagus and kitty litter just as soon as he sits down to eat. He’d go back for the kitty litter, but the asparagus!? So just to be sure he’ll get his fill he takes 362 pieces of pizza. He only gets one plate though, he wouldn’t want to waste those.
He holds the pizza mountain up by his forehead as he screams to his two children to “Get their asses in gear.” Their movement is impeded because they have followed in their dad’s gargantuan footsteps and matched his pizza mountain. It’s hard to walk with tiny legs and arms full of cheese.
The management at Ci-Ci’s would be irate if I took 358 pieces of pizza to the homeless people down the street. If I am allowed 362 pieces of pizza and I only eat 4, why can’t I give the extra to homeless people? This confuses me.
The man with 362 pieces of pizza won’t eat all 362. He may leave 45 pieces on his tray right next to his empty napkin dispenser. There will be hundreds of napkins lining the floor. His kids will eat one piece of pepperoni and become distracted by the blinking lights on the crap-o-grab. There is a grand total of 789 pieces of pizza left in their wake. I can’t take them to needy children, they have to be thrown away for sanitations sake.
I decide that I would like to partake in my fifth slice of pizza and get up from the table. I leave my Richard Brautigan book on the table next to my full glass of water. I plan to finish them both when I return. When I return though, my book and water have been moved to another table. Replacing my book is another mountain of pizza. Replacing my glass of water; a glass of coke. Replacing me. A sweaty bulbous man.
I don’t cause scenes. I’m not most people. So I picked up my book and took my fifth slice of pizza off my plate. I started walking toward the door and before I could step outside, I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Sir? I’m sorry but you can’t leave with pizza.”
“But, it’s only one piece and my table was taken. Besides I paid for it”
“I’m sorry sir, but it’s Ci-Ci’s policy. It’s to prevent theft.”
We live in the only country on Earth that would justify world hunger in this way.