Last night, Michele and I ran to Wal-Mart for a few things right after she picked me up at the station. Nothing had been started for dinner, so we decided to pick something up. Big Daddy’s is a hot-and-ready pizza place (except they have to call it something else, because that’s a Little Caesar’s trademark). This was about 6:15 p.m. on a Monday night, so I figured they’d be all decked out for the suppertime trade.
They had nothing ready.
So I went to Plan B, which is the Little Caesar’s kitty-corner, in the shopping plaza on the northwest corner of the intersection. And when I got there…
They had nothing ready.
Fine. The plaza that held Little Caesar’s was anchored by Macey’s, a local supermarket. I’d just grab a fried chicken dinner from their deli. And when I went in…
There was no chicken ready.
Had I died? Was this Hell?
I surrendered and went to the Papa Murphy’s take-and-bake pizza outlet on the northeast corner. (For those keeping track, I’ve now visited every corner of this intersection except the southwest. There’s nothing on the southwest corner except a Panda Cafe, and I’d sooner eat my socks.) We called the kids to turn on the oven as we went home with out pizzas.
I said to Michele, “I know that modern Western civilization has many many problems, but it’s one redeeming grace for me has been that things are there when you want them. But I am witnessing the failure of the hot-and-ready paradigm. I am losing faith in my cultural milieu.” Pause. “I can probably get a blog post out of this.”