They Say There's No Such Thing As Bad Pizza

On January 2nd, we ordered our first pizza delivery of the new year (and of the new decade) for dinner.  Actually, the husband ordered it while I napped on the couch, totally exhausted after my first day back to work in over a week.  I was only clued in that dinner was being handled when his phone rang.  The pizza place had not received mushrooms in their delivery that day and they wanted to know if we wanted another topping.  The husband selected a different topping and hung up, slightly annoyed that the call had woken me up and ruined the surprise.   

Through the magic of technology, we can track the delivery person as he/she makes their way to us.  We saw that the person was right outside our building and we waited to get the call from the front desk confirming that we were, in fact, expecting a food delivery.  We waited and we waited. No call.  I started to get nervous because we had quite a few delivery issues in 2019 (which will likely end up being its own future blog post).  The husband reached out to the delivery person via the app - were they lost? did they need assistance?  We received an immediate response back - he (as we would later learn) apologized and then explained he had just received a message from the pizza place that they had given him the wrong pizza for us.  He had to go back and bring us the right one.  We understood and I felt a slight sense of relief - we were starting off 2020 food delivery with a delay, but not an issue with the actual food.

About 35 minutes later, he was back.  The front desk called to confirm.  He brought us the pizza, apologizing again, and we tipped him.  I was hungry and ready to dig into my first slice.  We sat down, opened the box lid, looked at the pizza and then at each other.   This was definitely not the right pizza.  The box was marked with my husband's name but the contents - pizza with bacon, chunks of chicken and ranch dressing - was certainly not what he ordered.  I sighed.  It looked gross but given how hungry I was, I actually thought for half a second that maybe I would give it a try.  I just couldn't.  The husband called the pizza place, they apologized, said they would make us a new pizza and credit us the order.  Great, except of course the delivery company knew nothing about this new order and so we were unsure if/how we would actually receive this new pizza.  

Before you think we're entitled millennials and/or completely lazy, this pizza place is not located within a block or so of our place.  One of the advantages of living in the city and having a variety of food delivery companies is that we can try food from a wide range of places, even places that don't hire their own delivery people.  This pizza place happened to be located in Philadelphia's famed Italian Market, at least a 30-40 minute walk, one way, from our condo.  Yes, we could have gotten a cab or Uber but then that's a lot more to spend for a simple pizza that they messed up.  Besides, it's pizza.  Isn't pizza supposed to be delivered?

Meanwhile, I was trying to think of what we could do with the whole pizza sitting on the table in front of us. It was not appealing in the slightest to us, but we did not want to waste it.  We decided to bring it outside to one of the several homeless people usually hanging out on the block.  When you're hungry, you're hungry - you're grateful for anything.  And, the homeless man we spotted that night was indeed grateful.  He repeatedly said "God Bless" and seemed to appreciate the good fortune of receiving the box of pizza from us on a drizzly night. 

We turned to head back inside when I saw the man stand up off of the grate, put the pizza box down and proceed to sit right on top of it. Hmm. Not what I was expecting and I began to immediately try to figure out why he did that.  Was he heating up the pizza? Was this a way to protect "his" food from other homeless in the area?  Did he even know we gave him food or did he think we just brought him cardboard to sit on?  This was our discussion for the whole elevator ride back up to 33.  I had to let it go and feel good that we tried to do something nice.

When we got back inside our condo, we prepared to eat a lovely dinner of cheese & crackers and other miscellaneous snacks.  It was clear that we were never going to get that new pizza and we had already confirmed that we received our money back. 


The next morning, as I headed out to work, I saw the pizza box, sitting nearly in the exact same spot.  No homeless man in sight.  I was curious but too afraid to peek inside - did he eat any of it?  Were there perhaps rodents or other pests inside now?  Did he possibly use it as a toilet?  I snapped a picture of the box and texted it to the husband.  I felt bad we had contributed to litter on the street. I guess there is truth to the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

But that's just my view.  From the 33rd floor.