HELLO, 911-1111? IF THIS WERE 911 INSTEAD, I’D BE DEAD BY NOW.

Hello. I’m the latest addition to Bogchinoypi’s line-up of writers. I should caution you though: I’m completely new to this, whether “blogging” in general, or writing about food. I guess I’m saying this to all the readers who frequent this site—yes, both of you—in the hopes of lowering your expectations and, therefore, inflating your opinion about this article.

For my inaugural post (and quite possibly my last post, depending on whether this blog’s "chowers that be" decide I’m too offensive or annoying to keep writing here), I decided to write about pizza. Pizza Hut, in particular. Their delivery hotline, to be even more precise. Yes, this is not about the quality of their toppings, or how crunchy or golden brown their crust is, or how their pizzas generally taste (Answer: their pizzas are pretty good; sh*t, this “food blogging” thing is easier than I thought).

Instead, I want to write—rant, really—about the spiel which their call center agents give me each and every single goddamn time I call 911-1111 to order a stupid pizza (so, for everyone who came to this blog looking for useful tips on where or what to eat, you’ve been warned about the enormous amount of your time that’s about to be wasted. Continue reading this profanity-ridden, amateurishly formatted and pitifully unfunny post at your own risk).

“Hi, I have a delivery for Mr. ____.
Wha … whaddya mean he just died?”

But before I go on, let me get this out of the way: yes, I’m aware that these call center agents are contractually obligated to give the aforesaid spiel, that they have no real choice, that they’re just doing their jobs and are simply trying to make an honest and honorable living, and that, in any case, taking someone’s order for a pizza over the phone is hardly the proper vehicle for individual expression or creativity. I know all this. So this rant isn’t directed at them personally. I don’t blame them. I blame the script which their corporate masters gave. I blame the System.

I order pizza pretty frequently. This is because of a number of factors: our family “cook”, Bing, can’t really cook for sh*t (except for her spaghetti), and I like to stay home a lot and just masturbate, er, vegetate in front of the TV. So, quite often, the arrangement that suits me is to have pizza delivered. Plus, since I always order a pizza bigger than what I can finish by myself in one sitting, there’s the added bonus of being able to eat leftover pizza on some later day, whether it’s because I have a case of the late-night munchies, or I’m simply not in the mood to tolerate whatever culinary abomination Bing conjures up for that day.

Unfortunately, however, the phone call I have to make to order a pizza is one big exercise in frustration, and it takes every single ounce of civility in me to refrain from giving in to my rage at the inane script which costs me precious moments of my life, moments which I’ll never get back (kinda like the moments you’ll never get back after reading this).

“Thank you for calling Pizza Hut Delivery.
What kind of shoes are you wearing right now sir?
And may I know your zodiac sign?”

To everyone out there who has ever ordered Pizza Hut by phone, this will probably sound a little familiar:

NOTE: What follows is a more or less accurate transcription of a typical call to Pizza Hut. All personal details are left blank to protect the identities of the persons concerned (namely, me, so nobody knows how much of an assh*le I am), the phone conversation is in italics, and my annotations are not. (Sorry, is all this already understood? Told you I’m new to this “blogging” thing).

PH: Good evening, sir, thank you for calling Pizza Hut delivery. How may I help you?

Me: Good evening. Yes, puede magpa-deliver?

PH: Yes, sir. Can I have your phone number?

Me: Yeah, it’s _______.

PH: [sound of someone typing on a computer] Oh hi, sir _________. It’s so nice to hear from you again. For how many people are you ordering?

[One quick tangent: this reminds of me of another of my pizza-related pet peeves. I absolutely hate it whenever the situations are reversed, and I ask the cashier/waiter at a pizza joint about the number of people who can be served by each of the different sizes of their pizza. Obviously, I want to know if this or that size is good for 1 person, for 2 people, and so forth. Almost every single f*cking time, however, the cashier/waiter tells me the pizza has 8 slices. Hey, dipsh*t, I know it comes in 8 f*cking slices. That means absolutely nothing to me and gives me exactly zero information. Nearly every single pizza which has ever been made in the history of civilization can be cut up into 8 f*cking slices, whether it’s as big as a car tire, or as small as Haw Flakes (Actual Opinion About Food or “AOAF” No. 1: I like Haw Flakes. They’re good). Okay, end of tangent.]

ANGEL LOCSIN BOOBS.
(Sorry, was just hoping that Google might misdirect some people to this blog, thereby increasing our readership. Besides, her nipples might look like Haw Flakes anyway. Crap, I think I just sprouted a boner.)

Anyways, as I said earlier, I always deliberately order a pizza that’s too big for me to finish alone in one sitting. That’s because I like eating leftover pizza (sometimes, even more than freshly baked ones), and because, sometimes, my brother eats the rest (yes, I still live at home, with my parents. If you think that makes me a loser nerd, well, would a loser nerd own a sweet, sweet lightsaber replica? I know, right?).

Pictured: a total badass.
Not pictured: a loser nerd.

Obviously, though, this is far too much information than I want to share with a complete stranger, and I really don’t want to unnecessarily prolong a conversation which, as far as I’m concerned, is already taking way too long.

However, if I tell the Pizza Hut guy/girl that I’m ordering for one, he/she’s going to think I’m some loser (and we’ve earlier established that I’m not) who can’t even find someone to share a pizza with. To make matters worse, if I say I’m ordering for one, without sharing my life story or philosophies about ordering pizza, and only to later disclose that I want a “family” sized pizza, he/she will also think the reason I’m some loser eating pizza at home alone is because I’m f*cking obese. And I’m not. I’ll have you know I go to the gym. Like once a month, at least.

Of course, all this could have been avoided, and I wouldn't have had to grapple with my neuroses, if they'd simply asked me what size of pizza I wanted. But nooooo, they just had to be nosy and ask how many people were going to sample their fine pizza.

Anyways, the solution to all this? I lie.

Me: Uh, for 4 people.

F*ck you, Pizza Hut, Inc. F*ck you for making me feel bad about myself that I’m eating home alone, f*ck you for making me care that someone might think I’m obese, and f*ck you for forcing me to lie.

PH: Okay, sir. What would you like to order?

Me: I’d like a family supreme pan pizza, please.

AOAF No. 2: I order supreme, and not super supreme, because I hate pineapples on pizza. I think it’s gross. (Hey, I’m getting the hang of this. Actually, let’s call it “SARF” instead of “AOAF”. Stands for “Statement Actually Related to Food”. SARF. This will catch on. I can feel it.)

PH: Okay, sir, that’s an excellent choice. I’ve tried that myself.

I know it’s an excellent choice. That’s why I ordered it. Why the hell do you feel the need to reassure me about my life choices? Did I mistakenly call Dial-a-Friend? Jesus, just a few seconds ago, you made me think I was a loser, and that I was a pig for ordering a family sized pizza, and now you want to give me affirmation?!? Stop playing with my emotions, Pizza Hut. Just stop it.

PH: Okay, sir, can I just confirm your delivery address …

One quick explanation before I continue. My family owns a small rinky-dink hospital, and it carries my surname. Let’s call it Skywalker Hospital. Since giving directions to my house can be complicated (you might, in fact, miss a turn if the shirtless drunk I normally use as a landmark decides to stand someplace else), whereas the hospital is relatively easier to locate, and since my house is accessible from the hospital, I always have all deliveries sent to the hospital’s front desk/reception area, where they’ll take care of bringing the pizza (or whatever else) to me.

PH (continuing): … okay, Mr. Skywalker, is your delivery address Skywalker Hospital, ____ Street, ________ City, at the front desk?

Me: Yes, that’s right.

PH: Are you a patient?

Oh, where do I begin?

First of all, that’s really none of your business, and it’s not really necessary for you to know that, is it? You know the delivery address, so please just have the delivery guy bring it there, ok? Pretty please?

Second, if my name and address are stored in your computer database, that means I’ve ordered before, right? And if I’m a patient, and I’ve ordered before, and during all the previous times I ordered, I gave my permanent address as a hospital, that must mean I’m really sick, right? Like really, really sick. Dying sick. And if that’s the case, why in f*ck’s name are you wasting whatever little time I have left on this earth with idle chit-chat? (And by the way, Pizza Hut—if I were dying and had few precious meals left to eat, I’d eat steak or something, not your pizzas. Which brings us to SARF No. 3: Pizza Hut supreme pizzas are good, but they’re not “deathbed good”.)

[Another tangent coming up: On that note, I’ve just come up with a scale for rating food. In ascending order of greatness:

• Semen good — You can swallow it if you’re adventurous or have kinky tastes, but most of the time, you’d rather just spit it out (not that I’ve ever done either). This does not, as some of you might have thought, mean that the food sort of smells like pancake mix.

• Bing good — Edible, but you’d rather have something else if you can help it. And not good enough that you’d knowingly pay for it. Basically, it makes you say “meh”.

• Bing spaghetti good — Pretty good; worth the price and something you’d want to come back for

• “Om nom nom nom nom nom” good — So good you just scarf it down, eat loudly, and stop talking to your dinner companions (or masturbating, as the case might be)

• Deathbed good — The highest accolade possible. As the name plainly implies, it’s so good you’d want to spend your last few moments eating this (but then again, maybe you should just masturbate one last time instead. I’m pretty sure they serve fantastic food in Heaven; on the other hand, I’m absolutely certain they won’t let you “choke the chicken” there. And even if they would, there’s not likely to be any available porn).

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the greatest rating scale ever.

(And yes, I know what you’re thinking: if “om nom nom nom nom nom” good > masturbation, and deathbed good is supposed to be > “om nom nom nom nom nom” good, then how can masturbation be > deathbed good? Because I said so, that’s how. My scale, my rules.)

End of tangent, back to my rant.]

Third, you know my name is ______ Skywalker. And the delivery address is Skywalker Hospital. The conclusion you draw from that is that I’m a patient? I suppose I’d understand if my delivery address were St. Luke’s Hospital, and I said my name was Luke Skywalker, but that’s clearly not the case here. In fact, if, for some strange reason, somebody asks you to deliver pizza to Shakey’s (or Magoo’s, incidentally one of the exceptions to the “8 slices” thing) and says his name is Mr. Shakey (or Mr. Magoo), do you ask him if he’s a customer? (Wait, come to think of it, the caller’s probably jerking you off, so, yeah, you should ask. I would. Then you should tell him to go f*ck himself. Poor example. My bad.)

“What’s that, young man? Yes, I really do want one of your pizzas.
Why? Because f*ck those square pizzas, that’s why.”

In the interests of transparency and fairness, though, let me say that, in Pizza Hut’s defense (and, yes, I realize I’m defending Pizza Hut against my own tirade), the blame for this “are you a patient?” bit can’t be placed on their script (and they obviously could not have foreseen this would happen). Plus, it happened just that one time, with a female call center agent who didn’t have enough common sense and/or was simply too intrusive. I’d like to think she was just wooed by my manly voice, that she was smitten, even over the phone, by my general, all-around Jedi bad-assery, and that I was just oozing too much pheromones and midichlorians (my apologies to the non-nerds out there; go ahead and “Google” it, if you like) for her to resist, so much so that she just had to know more about me. Or maybe she just wanted to know if she should send me flowers for my speedy recovery. Even though I’m apparently dying from some lingering disease.

Me: … No. I'm not a patient.

PH: Can I interest you in some garlic bread or chicken wings?

No comment here, except to say that although this means more time wasted, I know Pizza Hut is just taking advantage of every available opportunity to maximize its sales. I can respect that. I’m reasonable, see?

Me: No, thank you.

PH: Okay, sir. Your pizza will be delivered, hot and fresh, within 45 minutes. Thank you for calling Pizza Hut.

Of course, what I really want to say is “Look, if you had just gone straight to asking me what I f*cking wanted instead of wasting both our times, the pizza would have been here by now.” But Mama Skywalker raised me to have some manners. So I don’t say that.

Me: Thank you.

I’d like to end this post with an appeal to Pizza Hut, to its executives and big bosses. Please, Mr. Hut, change your goddamn script. It’s in our mutual best interests: we, your loyal customers, will be able to get our pizzas quicker and get back to our miserable lives sooner, and you, on the other hand, will be able to field more calls and make more sales.

Above: Pizza Hut’s head honcho (in my head, anyway).
Coincidence? I think not.

Plus, if your database has our names, numbers and delivery addresses, surely you must realize that we’ve called, and we’ve heard the spiel, at least once before. The friendly banter might be nice the first time, but it gets progressively more annoying with each succeeding call. And the bit about how we’ve made an excellent choice and that the agent has tried it himself/herself? Well, it sounds particularly trite, and comes off as being so insincere that I automatically don’t believe anything he/she says anymore. That's precisely why I instinctively reject his/her offers of garlic bread or chicken wings, out of sheer principle. So everybody loses (well, everybody except the chicken). I mean, when somebody brings their kid to Skywalker Hospital to have him circumcised, the doctors don’t say “tama po ‘yan, misis. Ako din po nagpa-tuli kasi ayokong maging supot” (in my head, Skywalker Hospital doctors always speak in Filipino).

“I’m sorry, not sure I heard you right. You’re going to do WHAT to my penis … ?!?”

“The bad news: we cut off waaaay more than we should have.
The good news: you look like a girl anyway.”

It’s just unnecessary over-sharing; a painfully transparent but woefully unsuccessful attempt to manufacture an artificial sense of personal bonding between the parties to what is merely a commercial transaction, which just ends up irritating the recipient of the unsolicited information, not only because of the patent lack of authenticity behind it, but also because he/she resents, perhaps subconsciously, the unspoken premise that the other party’s ostensibly personal assurances would somehow affect his/her own decision-making process. So what I’m saying is, yeah, it annoys the living f*ck out of us.

So please, Pizza Hut. Change your script.

And while you’re at it, maybe you can ditch the pineapples and put Haw Flakes instead.