Deliveries from March 24 - History Lessons

I deleted my pizza tracking spreadsheet on the third-to-the-last day of January. Poof. Gone. Fellow geeks, fear not, I did everything I could to recover it. Which is a lot. I did not lose my geek card while attempting file recovery. It’s gone.

Before we move on, here’s a grammar lesson: ‘alot’ does not exist.

My blog editing software proved it just now. It auto-corrected my ‘alot’ twice before leaving an angry squiggly. Here’s proof in screenshot form:

But if you want a good laugh, Google it.

I stepped in from a delivery at around 10 PM. I put my pizza bag where it belonged. I folded the other bags and stacked them. Tock was talking to a manger. He has gone two weeks now without a cigarette, even longer without marijuana.

I congratulated Tock from outside his conversation as I folded and he stepped into the back.

I finished folding and left the delivery staging area. I unzipped my sweater, hung it up, then looked down to the pockets of my apron to make sure I had my phone. I saw my expanding waistline. The clipboard glistened in the other pocket.

No phone.

I tapped my back pocket. It was there. I must have moved it when I stepped into the store. It doesn’t get wet during dishes if I put it in my back pocket. That was a quick lesson learned from  historical splashes and sprays.

I made my way into the back. Tock was the only other driver on duty last night, so I struck up conversation.

“Yeah, I’ve got an addiction I’ve got to kick, man,” I said to him.

Steam billowed out of Blastoise – our handy 90-second cycle industrial dish destroyer – and Tock pushed a tray through.

“Oh yeah?” he said. I grabbed the finished tray and pulled it away from the blast doors.

“I’ve got to quit eating,” I said.

“Oh man, I hear you. That’s part of why I’m quitting smoking. I want to get to where I can breathe enough to hit the gym,” Tock said.

More dishes slid and banged as the washer hit warp 1.

“Nah, I found this game. Uber King Force of Swords,” he said.

“Ohhhhh buddy, I know that game,” I said. And I did. It was addicting.

“Yeah, my Lord is built up to the 27th highest level in the entire world. I joined this Alliance… it’s funny, because the members are a bunch of gaming Muslims!” Tock said, throwing his arms out to the side. “Like, Syrian Muslims! From Syria!” he said, pointing a finger out the back wall of the restaurant. Toward Syria.

“Oh really?”

He continued to tell me the tale of this unlikely Alliance. He, a Christian, has relished learning what his fellow gamers have told him about Islam, their feelings of ‘Zionists’, and what actually happened after World War II.

Leff-tenant  – one of Cap’n’s seconds – shouted toward the back that I had a delivery. I detached from Tock’s explication and left.

That was the last delivery of the day. Same routine. I deposited my bag, folded, and corrected any others that needed it. The phone went in back pocket. The waistline continued expanding.

Tock spun a pan lid in his hands as I stepped into the washing area.

“Hey RI, let me tell you a history lesson,” he said.

He proceeded to tell me about the establishment of the Jewish state after WWII. He said it had happened because several years before the war, when the Jews were attempting to emigrate, every major Western power had refused them. Many millions of dead Jews later, the Western powers felt so terrible that they forcibly drew a border around Israel and called it Israel.

I listened. He explained how he was Pro-Israel. He was totally Pro-Israel. But he had to keep an open mind, and loved learning from these dudes he gamed with. I contributed some, but mostly listened. Then I stood dumbfounded.

I’m having a conversation about the Israel-Palestine conflict in a pizza kitchen, I thought.

What a night. And what a conversation. I can’t believe the things I hear and the situations I learn about. Everybody has such rich stories and interesting experiences around me.

I took that history lesson and others home with me that night. Here’s a recap:

1. Deleting months worth of statistical data about your second job is painful.
2. Israel exists because Western powers drew borders by force.
3. Games draw people together and help them talk.

Maybe what Netanyahu and Rouhani need isn’t a two-state solution, tighter economic sanctions, or a lack of a nucular bomb.

Maybe they just need to bro it out over a Facebook game. Goes without saying, but I think that would be:

ROE INTENSE