I was going to go off on a rant here about meeting leftovers, and the “lone wolf” approach given here versus the idea of forming a food notification network with co-workers. But instead, I’m going to get nostalgic about free pizza.
When I was a teenager, the Little Caesars in Palmer, MA had a Simon-like pattern repetition game that you could play for a quarter, and if you got a high enough score, you could win two pizzas. I discovered rather quickly that I was exceptionally good at this game, and could win the pizzas nearly every time I played. After a while, the people working there started making my pizza as soon as I came in the door. My friends and I would generally consume my winnings in the parking lot, as Little Caesars had no seating area. Eventually the store instituted a rule that you could only win once a week, and a while later, they wised up and disabled the sound on the machine, which ended my streak – I could play the game with my eyes closed (and had at times, to impress my friends,) but I couldn’t do it without the sound. A nearby Papa Gino’s had a similar game, but I couldn’t win that one because the pitches of the sounds the buttons made weren’t in ascending order (i.e., the tone the second button made was higher than the first, but the third was lower than the second.)
A while later I moved to Syracuse, and lo and behold, there were *TWO* Little Caesars in the area, and each had a machine. One of them required getting a disturbingly high score in order to win, and I couldn’t quite do it. But the other was the same as the one from Palmer, and I could once again win a pizza every week. Between that, the local Chinese buffet, and the McDonald’s with all-you-can-eat pancakes, my roommate and I ate like kings. I later used my pizza-acquisition skill to impress my girlfriend, with surprisingly-successful results – she apparently recognized this as a modern hunter-gatherer skill, as natural selection kicked in and she eventually married me and bore my spawn, who is also rather good at Simon.
I haven’t seen one of these machines in a long time. But every time I see a Little Caesars, I slow down and gaze wistfully in the window. The employees, who aren’t used to wistful gazes being directed at their establishment, generally eye me with suspicion.
PLUGGERY: On a completely unrelated note, my wife has put together another stop-motion video to plug another piece she made. It’s awesome, and it features a whale.
-=ShoEboX=-
Cool story. Free food is a wonderous thing.
The behavior you describe of stalking a pizza delivery man is not uncommon at all. During the time I spent delivering pizza, I started to become genuinely uncomfortable delivering to public places (offices, hospitals). People would become silent and watchful as they spotted you. There muscles tensed up. Groups would fan out in all directions to prevent escape….
The pizza guy is to America as the zebra is to Africa.
When I was on a post-HS road trip with friends, we stopped at a Little Caesar’s in New Jersey – my first LC experience, since their reach didn’t extend to greater Boston. I also impressed my friends with a win at the Simon game, and we ate that pizza with a special enjoyment reserved for food well-won.
Thanks for bringing up that memory.
Never ate at the Little Caesar’s in Palmer (used to live there myself). I’d usually do the more “family owned” sortsa places. Don’t know if there even remains a Little Caesar’s in Mass; I know there’s one in Missouri where I live now though. But if I want pizza, I make it myself now
At one place I worked, my office-neighbor had impressive food radar, even though the conference room was on the other side of the building. We got in trouble once for lurking outside the adjoining room where the food was and nudging the connecting door closed once it looked like people were probably done eating, so we could get on with foraging.
@Padic I believe you about the pizza man being a modern gazelle. I saw a pizza guy after dark in a parking lot and just to make conversation I said “Hi. What kind of pizza do you have there?” He became the most afraid I have ever seen another person. I guess he thought I was going to mug him for $7.99 worth of food =(
That’s brilliant.. I wish my gaming abilities could get me food.. and I love the idea that if you have the ability to get food and shelter on your own, you don’t need to work.. we could use more of that..
I just had a free food scavenging experience myself- the campus dorm next door to my apartment complex was having a welcome back free food bash. Either at 26 I still look like a freshman, or no one cared, but some darn good hot dogs.
Hey all, thanks for the kind words and stories of foraging and pizza delivery person fear! Glad you enjoyed!
Mahare – that area does have some great family-owned pizza places…I can’t remember the names of the places in Palmer I liked, but I still try to get to Monson Pizza whenever I go back to visit.
-=’Box=-
Also, found a video of the machine in question on Youtube, for those who care: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGwqyjyc7no
The idea of actually OWNING one of these never occurred to me, and I really want one now, if only so I can take it to a local Little Caesars that doesn’t have one, set it up, play it, and demand free pizza.
-=’Box=-
Some 35 years ago, when I was a single comp sci undergrad at BYU, I had a good friend, Mark Savon, who was a fellow starving single comp sci undergrad. There was a fish-and-chips place a few blocks off campus that had an all-you-can-eat deal on Tuesdays. Mark would go there around lunch time on Tuesdays with his books and study/do homework all afternoon long and into the evening, eating slowly but steadily. He probably got a significant percentage of his weekly food intake from those Tuesdays.
A fatty story…
I watched the Mrs. Shoebox stop-motion movie, and I would like to know where the Flower pot’s caption went? Should it not have said “Not again”?