As I briefly mentioned, before I took my blogging sabbatical, I’d spent the weekend in New Orleans. And by weekend, I mean I was there for about twenty-four hours. Six of which were spent in the Louis Armstrong Airport.
Sophie and I were there to blog for Allaccess and after the first part of the Living Proof Live event ended on Friday night, we felt like we needed something to eat in spite of the fact that I’d eaten a crawfish po-boy that was bigger than my head only a few hours earlier.
So we did what most people do when they’re in a city that’s world renowned for its cuisine; we went to Domino’s Pizza.
We originally debated just ordering room service, but $26.00 seemed a little pricey for a cheese plate, even if it did promise homemade pecan bread and various cheeses from around the world. Instead, we ventured outside the hotel but were too exhausted to find a real restaurant. Our choices boiled down to a Quik Mart that offered four-day-old fried chicken kept warm by a thirty-watt lightbulb or Domino’s.
Several people were already waiting for their orders in the Domino’s waiting area and I immediately sensed they’d been waiting for their pizzas for a long time. I have an intuition about these types of things or maybe it was the fact that one customer had curled up and fallen asleep on the bench. I’m not sure.
The girl behind the counter was on the phone when we walked up to the order window and she looked up long enough to ROLL her eyes at the very nerve of us interrupting her personal conversation to order a pizza. What did we think this was? A pizza place?
She put the receiver to her chest, adjusted her Domino’s visor, and said, “Mmhe melo hou?”
“Um. Sorry to bother you. Can you tell us how long it would take to get a pizza?”
“Shnme melm.”
“Beg your pardon?”
Big eye roll.
She put down the phone, glanced back towards the kitchen that contained no indication that anyone was actually making pizzas, and said what I believed to be “Fifteen minutes”.
“Okay. Then we’d like the four for $4.00 special with pepperoni!”
Hooray for optimism.
We paid for our pizza and I could tell as we faced the waiting room crowd that we’d made a huge mistake. Why didn’t anyone tell us that it was too late for them but we should save ourselves? It was as if they were all bound by some unwritten code of Domino’s Pizza silence.
For the next hour we watched people give up on their cheesy breadsticks and Philly Cheesesteak pizzas and go back from whence they came. But not us.
Oh no ma’am, we were prepared to die on that Domino mountain or uncomfortable bench or whatever. We’d shelled out $16.00 for our pizzas, we’d invested the time, and we were going to get us a pepperoni pizza if it killed us. There was no going back to the comfort and safety of the hotel and settling for a $28.00 plate of global cheese.
The Domino’s patrons were looking sketchier by the minute and that’s when I began to wonder if I was going to meet my demise in an establishment that serves mediocre pizza at best.
About that time, one of the other customers decided to impress those of us still waiting for any semblance of food. He got on his cell phone and proceeded to call everyone he knew to tell them about the party he’d just left and the party he was headed to after he got his pizza. And how awesome all the parties were and how he didn’t put up with anything from anyone.
Well, except for maybe the folks at Domino’s who had kept him waiting for over an hour for his pizza.
It was fascinating.
At some point during his fifth cell phone call, he realized all his party plans were failing to draw us in. I hated to tell him that he was dealing with two mamas in their late 30’s. The only party we’re looking for at this point in our lives is a comfortable couch and some sort of reality show marathon on Bravo, preferably involving Rachel Zoe.
So he got off the phone and began to tell us his Domino’s Pizza conspiracy theory. According to him, they purposely make you wait so you’ll leave without your food and they’ll keep your money. Apparently it’s how they make a profit. I don’t really give that theory any credit because it doesn’t make any sense and, also, because I heard it from a drunk guy in New Orleans.
After spending an hour watching the girl at the counter repeatedly gaze into the kitchen and tell prospective customers that it would be “about fifteen minutes”, we finally heard her call out, “Joikobnse”. I wasn’t totally sure it was us, but it looked close enough. We grabbed it and ran back to the hotel.
It was one of the best pepperoni pizzas I’ve had in at least a week.
In fact, I’d like to say it was worth the wait.
But that would be a lie.
However, you have to believe that it was better than four-day-old chicken.