Pizza Party

To overcome the blah of the cold and rain, I gave into my desire for Pizza Hut. It made me fat and happy, and allowed me to share a childhood celebration with Moanna.

When we were little, Pizza Hut pizza was a big deal in our house. It was such a big deal that we had pizza parties nearly every time Pizza Hut came into our home. It was one of the rare occasions that my little brother and  I weren’t trying to kill each other (we used to give each other hell all the time – OK 80% of the time), and instead got along. Once the pizza was gone the truce was over. My mom would call Pizza Hut, ask what the specials were, and order the pizza. Despite the specials, we usually got the same thing each time. Two pan pizzas. One was with pepperoni and black olives, and the other was sausage and mushroom. For a super special occasion we got bread sticks too. Then she would leave us at home while she ran the 4 blocks to get the pizza and came back. In today’s world, you would never leave kids that young alone, but back then it was uncommon for kids our age to NOT be left alone for short periods of time while our parents ran to get pizza or groceries, or just drove around the block for sanity preservation. While Mom was gone, Josh and I would scurry around the kitchen getting out plates, cups, napkins and ice. We’d set them out in the neatest way we could on the coffee table, and then we would sit and wait for the pizza to arrive. It always felt like an eternity, but it was only a few minutes, but the pizza would finally arrive. Mom would poor the Coke into our cups and dish out the pizza. If we were really lucky, she would come home with a movie too. If we were not that lucky, we were stuck with what was on the primitive basic cable television.

Mine and Moanna’s pizza party was a tad different, but it was still a celebration. Everything in Moanna’s world is a celebration. I’ve never seen someone so excited about every ounce of life as she is.

To kick off our pizza party, we made brownies. I had been telling her all day that if she was good, we would make brownies, and that we’d have to eat them ALL before Daddy got home on Monday because they had gluten. We mixed up our brownies, spread ‘em in a pan and in the oven they went. As the brownies baked, I got online and ordered our pizza.  The internet was nearly nonexistent when I had my childhood pizza parties. We ordered a medium cheese pizza and cheesy bread; it was on special. Moanna likes cheese and only cheese on her pizza.

While we waited for the pizza to arrive (I was not going out in the cold and rain), we looked through Moanna’s book of DVD’s for a movie. After looking through the book three times, we settled on Curious George. When the delivery guy came to the door, Moanna nearly peed her pants – true story. “We’re having pizza for dinner! No way! Oh! Gotta go potty! Gotta go now!” She ran off to the potty, and I got out the plates, napkins and drinks.

Then we dug in. Moanna had two pieces of pizza (no crust) and two pieces of cheesy bread (no sauce). I had… I didn’t keep count of how much I ate. That would have been embarrassing. Just when we thought we couldn’t eat any more, we remembered the brownies and continued to make ourselves miserable. When we were finally stuffed beyond what should be physically possible, we snuggled on the couch until the movie was over. The End.

**This post was supposed to go out Saturday morning. I was also planning on revising it to make it worth reading before posting it. However, this weekend has been… interesting, so I just now got to hitting “publish” and I was afraid that if I took the time for edits that something else would come up this post would hang out in limbo forever. Please forgive me. I accept the fact that publishers and other people from the writing world will not be seeking out my talents based on this piece of work.**

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