Pizza's here!

Snoskred asks:

How's the food in Senegal?

This isn’t the answer that I intended to write, but it’s the answer I feel like writing today.

Tonight, Rose and I have embarked on a great adventure. At time of writing, I’m still not sure how it will turn out, but I’m highly optimistic.

Rose says that she cautions me against being overly hopeful, but that she appreciates my positive attitude.

We have decided… to order a pizza. To be delivered at home.

I know. It can’t be done.

For starters, there’s no such thing as a street address in this country. Mail goes to post boxes in post offices, roads aren’t marked, and there are no names or numbers on any of the buildings.

Usually, when someone is coming to our apartment for the first time, we just tell them to go to the pharmacy at the corner (which is where the bus stops) and to call us. Then we walk them to our door.

But that would completely ruin the point of delivery.

And we have it in our heads that we will sit at home, eat pizza on the couch and watch Office Space on DVD.

We’ve both been working like crazy for the past few weeks. We’re exhausted, stressed, and although we love going out to the jazz clubs at midnight on a Friday night in our prettiest high heels, we thought, for a change, we’d stay home.

It started out poorly. I wanted a veggie-filled pizza.

Not on the menu.

Me: Do you have vegetables?
Them: No.
Me: What about mushrooms?
Them: Yes, those we have.
Me: What other kinds of vegetables?
Them: Like eggplant or zucchini?
Me: Yes, exactly!
Them: Yeah, we don’t have that.
Me: I’m going to have to call you back.

So I moped a bit, and tried to convince Rose to order pizza from the farther place that she hates, to no avail.

So I called back.

And felt a ray of hope. There are two kinds of customer service people. Those who look for a solution, and those who… don’t.

If you tumble on the first kind, anything is possible, and they’ll go to surprising lengths to help you.

Then there’s the other kind. The ones who tell you they couldn’t possible mix two kinds of juice (both in large pitchers at the counter, sold for the same price) because it’s not safe.

The woman at the Boite à Pizza, it turned out was the first kind.

Me: Can I have a pizza with mushrooms and onions?
Her: And tomatoes?

Then she passed me to the deliveryman, to whom I gave my most detailed directions and my phone number.

I hung up feeling encouraged.

And it turns out, now that I'm completing this entry three hours later, my optimism was entirely warranted. Less than half an hour after my second phone call, a motorbike pulled up right in front of our house.

“That wasn’t hard to find at all.”

And he had change for my big bill.

We made sure to get his name so that we can ask for him next time.

I think I might be getting a bit jaded, here. I’ve started assuming people being difficult when they’re not giving me what I want, instead of maybe just… doing their job. And maybe I’m asking for something unreasonable.

In other words, it’s not the woman’s fault there were no zucchini or artichoke pizzas on the menu.

And when I opened the pizza, it was covered in mushrooms, fresh tomato, and onions, just like the woman had promised. As well as unadvertised green peppers.

Turns out, the only flaw in our evening was… my fault.

The Office Space DVD was broken.

Luckily, the School of Rock DVD worked like a charm.