Character Building

There are some things I just will not do. I will not take the big trashcan to the curb, or bring it back in. I will not stick my hand down the garbage disposal. And I will not call and order a pizza.

The trashcan is disgusting. It is big and gross and smelly and I don't like dealing with it. The garbage disposal is also gross, with the bonus awfulness of being dark and containing bone crushing, flesh ripping blades. There could very easily be something horrible lurking down there (like a mouse, or an old piece of potato) ready to gnaw my hand off (okay, maybe not the potato). No freaking way am I putting a hand down there.

The pizza...I don't know. The pizza people are nice enough. The process is simple - I know my phone number, my address, and what I want on my pizza. But I freeze up when they answer the phone. I stutter and stammer and, no kidding, get all sweaty trying to order a pizza. I don't have a problem ordering Thai food, it's just the pizza. What the hell?

Before the godsend of online ordering, Sean used to like to make me order a pizza. If I wanted pizza, I had to order it. I developed a distaste for pizza, a psychological defense mechanism to save me from 'the call'. It was borderline cruel. He said it was good for me, that it would build character.

Build character. Firstly, what kind of horrible shape is my character in that you think ordering a pizza is going to build it up? Secondly, pizza ordering would not be at the top of my list of character building activities. Volunteering. Performing manual labor. Birthing and raising children. These are character builders, not eking out the words "large thin crust supreme".

I'm dedicated to improving my moral worthiness, so I tried it. The typical conversation went something like this:

"Thank you for calling Character Builders Pizza. Delivery or Carry Out?"

"Ummm. Delivery?"

(Sean yells in the background: "ASK IF THEY HAVE ANY SPECIALS." Good God. Like this is not difficult enough as it is.)

"What can I get you?"

"Do you have any specials?"

The guy then proceeds to tell me a bunch of stuff that I do not remember because I'm not really listening because I am looking frantically for a pen to write down all the stuff he's saying because I know I will not remember it.

I turn to Sean:
"No, they don't have any specials."

Continue on for 3 or 4 minutes in which I stammer out an order that may or may not be what everyone decided on. I will also, undoubtedly, forget the chicken fingers or cinnamon bread crap that will cause one of my children to say "Oh my gawwwwwwwwwww, Daddy said we could get thaaaaat."

Isn't your character enhanced just thinking about it?

But now, we have online ordering and I will never have to order pizza over the phone again. Sean, on the other hand, still has to take out the trash.