I’m going to surprise my spouse by ordering pizza. I prepare to sneak out the door to go pick it up.

Spouse: “Pizza’s on the way. Hurry back.”

Me: “What do you mean, ‘Pizza’s on the way’?”

Did the toddler rat me out?!

Spouse: “I ordered pizza. It’ll be here soon.”

Me: “I ordered pizza.”

Spouse: “We both ordered pizza?”

Me: “How much did you spend?”

Spouse: “$30 for two from [Company #1].”

Me: “That pizza had better be fantastic, because I spent $15 for a large three-topping and cinnamon thingies from [Company #2].”

Spouse: “Yeah… I didn’t want [Company #2], and it was delivery plus tip.”

Me: “Welllll… Guess I’ll go pick up my order and we’ll just have $45 of pizza.”

Spouse: “I’ll call my brother and see if he’s hungry.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

I get to [Company #2]’s location. I head in.

Me: “Hey, I know I’m early. The pizza’s probably still in the oven, but I just wanted to let you know I’m here whenever it’s ready.”

Pizza Guy: “Oh, we haven’t even started your order. Our computers have been down all day. We’ve just opened. We’re an hour behind on orders. We’re calling everyone now to see if they still even want their orders.”

Me: “Oh.”

Pizza Guy: “We’ll go ahead and get started on your order right now.”

A lightbulb pops on in my head.

Me: “Actuallyyyyy… funny story. My spouse and I both decided to surprise each other with pizza for lunch. His is being delivered, so I came out to pick up this one. I truly would much rather pay you guys for the pizza, but I don’t really need both orders.”

Pizza Guy: “Haha, that’s great. You hear that, [Coworker]? Don’t worry about that order. We’ll go ahead and cancel it for you.”

BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE!

I head home and the delivery guy shows up.

Delivery Guy: “Just sign this and here’s your pizza.”

Me: “Oh, okay, here you go. Weren’t there supposed to be two pizzas?”

Delivery Guy: “Uhh… yes… Ah… Let me check my car… I might have mixed up the order with someone else’s pizza back at the store. I’ll be back with it as soon as I can.”

Me: “Oh, thanks. Sorry for the mixup!”

Delivery Guy: “Me, too!”

A short while later:

Delivery Guy: “Here are your pizzas. We went ahead and credited your account for two free pizzas next time you order.”

And that is is how you get two free pizzas by trying to buy too many pizzas.

This was several years back, after the Mars rover Curiosity successfully landed on the planet, the first Mars rover that could dig up soil samples for chemical analysis. There was excitement about it all over the news.

My sister, parents, and I were out having lunch with our parents’ friends, a very extroverted couple who love to travel and meet lots of people. The conversation turns to the Mars rover.

Friend #1: “You know, we know one of the engineers working on that project! He’s one of the guys in charge of getting the soil samples with the rover.”

Friend #2: “Oh, they were all ecstatic over there when it landed.”

Friend #1: “They were! And you know what? This guy is so brilliant — he works for NASA, after all! — but when he told his dad that he wanted to study engineering back when he was in college, his dad said he’d never be anything but a ditch digger! Can you believe that?”

Sister: *Pauses* “Well… his dad was right. He is a ditch digger. On Mars.”

Everyone froze for a second and then burst out laughing. The friends agreed she was right and that they had to tell the guy what she said the next time they talked to him. We never heard back about a reaction, but I sincerely hope he got to go home and gloat to his dad about landing the best ditch-digging job in the solar system.

This story is part of our Pluto roundup! This is the last story in the roundup, but we have plenty of others you might enjoy!

13 Spacey Stories About Aliens And Those Who Believe…

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I’m a DC fan and was always confused about the Superfamily. The only difference between Superman and Clark Kent is glasses. But no one knows his identity. I never understood it… until I switched from glasses to contacts. In the first class of the day, I was proven wrong about secret identities.

I walked up to my first-period teacher to ask a question.

Me: “[Teacher]? I have a question.”

Teacher: “Oh? Are you a new student? I wasn’t aware we were getting one.”

My mother has been looking for a customized Christmas gift for my step-dad for a while. His name is Mark, which is fairly common, so there are a lot of options. She decides to go for one that isn’t just the name, to make it a little more special.

On Christmas morning, my step-dad unwraps a coffee mug and reads it out. 

Step-Dad: “‘The man, the myth, the legend…’”

My mom smiles wide, happy that the gift arrived on time.

Step-Dad: “‘…Kyle.'”

My mom was devastated that the wrong name was printed on the mug, but the rest of us were dying laughing. The Kyle mug is proudly displayed in our kitchen.

I apparently have some kind of death wish, because I start working in a large store the last week of October. It is a frenzy, and I am put in charge of the Toys and Electronics sections, the two busiest sections for this time of year.

By the time Christmas Eve comes around, I am pretty comfortable in my role and closing the store. I am working with a training manager who is about my age but pretty out of touch with anything not dealing with hunting or sports.

We are getting ready to close the store and I hear wailing — not screaming, but it sounds like someone’s world is ending.

I round the corner and there is a woman losing her mind and my poor training manager just looks helpless. I get the mental “HELP ME” scream.

Me: “Is there something I can assist with today?”

Woman: “I’M THE WORST GRANDMOTHER EVER! I FORGOT WHAT KIND OF TOY I’M SUPPOSED TO GET MY GRANDDAUGHTER AND THEY ARE ON A PLANE, SO I CAN’T CALL AND ASK!”

Me: “Oh, no! Can you try to describe it to me?”

Woman: “It’s the one with the pictures.”

Me: “That doesn’t really narrow it down much. Can you remember anything else?”

Woman: “It says the pictures!”

While I am in my thirties, I don’t have children, but I can vaguely form a picture of what she is talking about. I can’t quite name it yet, but I definitely recall it from my days of being a youth assistant in my youth church growing up.

Training Manager: “I can walk you over to our infant section and we can look there and see.”

Woman: *Cutting him off* “I already looked there; I didn’t see it. They are going to ban me from being Grandma if I don’t get this toy!”

I highly doubt this, but [Training Manager] asks her to humor him, and they walk back over to the infant section. I have a hunch out of nowhere and walk to our tucked-away “Retro Toys” section, and there it is, staring me in the face: the “See-And-Say” in all its glory. I can barely hide my smile as I put the toy behind my back and track them down in the infant department.

Woman: “It isn’t here, it isn’t here.”

She just keeps repeating this over and over.

Me: “Ma’am, is this the toy you were looking for?”

She sees it and instinctively leaps at me giving me a surprisingly powerful hug.

Woman: “That’s it! That’s the toy! Oh, thank you, thank you, both of you! Thank you so much!”

Tears of joy are streaming down her face as she continues to hug both of us. After a few more seconds of gratitude, she puts the toy in her cart and says, in the coolest cool-granny way possible:

Woman: “Granny of the year, thanks to you boys!”

I never knew a ten-dollar toy could bring someone that much joy. Huh, neat.