Thursday's Reign of Destruction

Today started out ok. It was 75 and sunny again and the various talk shows on my local NPR affiliate were interesting enough. And then came lunch.

I was in kind of a rush to find some lunch as I hadn't scheduled my deliveries very well and it was 2:30pm by the time I was free. I ended up in Sebastopol which isn't my normal stomping ground, so the restaurants there are foreign to me.

As I drove by a strip mall I noticed a little place that said "Restaurant" above the door. I was indeed searching for a restaurant, and the little window decal declaring that they sell pizza by the slice sealed the deal. I went in and ordered a slice of "Italian Cheese Pizza" and a pink grapefruit juice squeeze, then sat down at a table.

They guy who had taken my order brought over my juice squeeze and a warm iceless glass of water with some stuff floating in it. The couple at the table next to me got the same glass of floaters and they inquired as to what it was. They guy said it was lemon, but upon taking a sip of my water, I detected not a hint of lemon. I concentrated on my juice squeeze.

When my pizza arrived I was thoroughly unimpressed. It looked like a Safeway select frozen pizza, and it tasted like the chef had undercooked the box. The dough was oddly hard, and yet felt undercooked at the edges. The cheese wasn't really melty or stringy as cheese should be. It was the taste and consistency of pizza-temperature wax. (Although I'm sure many a scented candle has more taste than this cheese did.)

When I went to pay, the guy asked how the slice was, and just as I was answering I read his shirt: "Slice of Life, Vegan Cuisine." "Um, good," I responded. On the way back to the depot I stopped to buy a Häagen Dazs bar.

When I got home I checked my email, played with Norbert for a while, and then ventured into the bathroom to contemplate life for a while. My contemplation was put on hold as I rounded the corner and discovered glass covering the floor and filling the tub. Apparently while I was at work my right shower door exploded. My first thought was that Norbert was somehow involved, but I was assured that shower doors are made of tempered glass and I would be hard pressed to break it even if I fired Norbert out of a cannon right into the door. (Which I was tempted to do when I first saw the destruction.)

So my shower is out of commission for a day or two. (I really hope it's not more.) And I'm pretty sure my landlord thinks I did it. I'm hoping her parents were home and heard it break sometime between the hours of 8am and 5pm when I was safely North of the Golden Gate Bridge. I want them to know that it wasn't my fault so they can feel bad about me having to scrounge around borrowing people's showers.