A coworker is on the phone with a lady ordering pizza. She can barely understand the customer; her voice is muffled.

Coworker: “Ma’am, are you wearing a mask?”

Customer: “Yes. I don’t want to get corona from you.”

I’m surprised that the lady didn’t want the pizza faxed to her.

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Grocery Workers – We Salute You! 

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I work at the front desk at a hotel on the night shift. We have a cupboard where guests can buy food. It has some frozen meals, but we don’t carry frozen pizza. A few guests ask once in a while, but, usually, guests will just order a pizza if they want one or go to the store that’s literally right next door and buy one.

One night, I come in, do my standard shift opening duties, and a guest comes down to the cupboard and asks if we have any frozen pizza. I tell him sorry, we do not, but [Pizza Chain] is up the street and if he doesn’t care for that, there are three other chains that can deliver to our hotel until 1:00 am. Or, the store next door is open twenty-four hours. He goes upstairs disappointed. 

About an hour later, when all is quiet, I take my dinner — leftover homemade pizza — to the break room, heat it up, and go back to the office where I can eat and also be available to jump onto the front desk if need be.

But, as I pass by the front desk to get to the office, I see the same guy standing at the counter and I put down my food and go see what he needs. It goes downhill from there.

Guest: “I thought you didn’t have pizza!” 

Me: “We don’t. That’s my personal pizza I brought from home. What can I do to help you?” 

He gets super upset and starts demanding that I either, a) give him my pizza, or b) pay for his pizza that he was going to order.

Me: “I can do neither of those things, but, if you have a problem, you can always contact my general manager or sales specialist and suggest we put frozen pizza in the pantry.”

Guest: “That’s a useless option, since I don’t stay here all the time, and I never will anymore because you don’t have freaking frozen pizza!”

I pick up the phone one night and answer with our usual spiel. The woman on the phone orders a pizza and a couple of containers of pasta and a garlic bread for delivery.

After ordering her normal food, she pauses and says this:

Woman: “This is going to sound nuts, but do you think there is any way you guys could make a rainbow pizza?”

Me: “Uh… so, a pizza shaped like a rainbow? Or with all the toppings mixed on top?”

Woman: “Honestly, I don’t mind. It doesn’t even have to taste nice. My five-year-old daughter is very sick and in hospital, and tonight is her birthday. She asked earlier for a rainbow pizza, and I didn’t think it was possible, but I figured it never hurt to ask. I don’t think she’d even be well enough to eat any of it, but seeing one would make her happy…”

The woman’s voice cracks as she’s talking. One of the pizza cooks has wandered over to get a drink and has heard my half of the conversation. I put the woman on hold and ask the pizza cook directly. When he hears it’s for a sick kid, he picks up the phone himself.

Pizza Cook: “Hi! Any allergies?”

Woman: “Nope. Can you really do it?”

Pizza Cook: “I’m gonna try my hardest!”

I take her address for delivery — it’s going to the hospital — and let her know it’ll be there as soon as possible. By now, the pizza cook has grabbed the other cook and they are excitedly talking between themselves. One of them ducks to the supermarket while the other one carefully stretches a pizza base into a rough rainbow shape.

When he comes back, they set to work on making the rainbow pizza. They use capsicums for the orange and green, cheese for the yellow, and tomatoes on the red arch, and I laugh when I realise the supermarket trip was for purple cauliflower that they’ve quickly blanched. I wonder what on earth they are going to use for the blue strip, and they produce a bottle of blue food dye and start tinting some of our bechamel sauce!

After it runs through the oven, it looks incredible. They carefully arrange some of our garlic poppers at the base of the rainbow-like clouds and pack it neatly into an oversized calzone box. The delivery driver has gotten involved and is doodling balloons on the outside of the boxes.

The girlfriend of the pizza cook is our dessert girl, and she has arranged some brownies in a box with some sprinkles and icing. The delivery guy carefully carries it out and the pizza cooks look pleased with themselves.

About half an hour later, the delivery driver comes back, grinning ear to ear. He pulls out his phone to show us photos of that sweet little girl’s face when she opened up her rainbow pizza and her birthday brownies. She was over the moon!

Her family regularly comes back to us now. She is still sick, but she is doing much better and is always a ball of sunshine when she comes in, calling us all her friends. Rainbow pizza went through some flavour testing and recipe changes and is now a permanent part of our menu!

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

23 Funny Stories About People Who Don’t Really “Get” Art

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We receive a call-in order.

Customer: “I want one of your medium pizzas.”

Me: “Yes, sir. What would you like on it? Or just cheese?”

Customer: “Pepperoni.”

Me: “All right, I have you down for a medium pepperoni pizza.”

Customer: “And cheese!”

Having had similar conversations like this before, and assuming incorrectly, I attempt to clarify.

Me: “A medium pizza with cheese and pepperoni. Did you want half cheese, half pepperoni, or a cheese pizza with pepperoni on the entire thing?”

Customer: “Is that how y’all do it?”

Me: “All of our pizzas automatically come with cheese. Did you want pepperoni on half of the pizza, or on the whole pizza?”

Customer: “You can put the pepperoni under the cheese or on top; it doesn’t matter to me.”

I am facepalming, so I try another tactic.

Me: “The medium pizza comes with six slices. Did you want all of them with pepperoni?”

The customer grumbles incoherently. Giving up, I push the order through — pepperoni and cheese on the whole pizza — and let the manager know about the conversation.

Me: “Your total is [amount]. It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.”

He never picked it up.

A customer is trying to stack up multiple coupons, even though they all say clearly “one per purchase.” He has escalated his complaint all the way up to the owner of the franchise, who has told him the exact same thing as all the other members of staff before him.

Customer: “I know my rights! You legally have to accept these coupons!”

Owner: “Sir, I—”

Customer: “I am friends with the district attorney! You can’t afford to mess with me!”

Owner: “Sir, you can’t even afford a pizza.”

The customer huffed, but finally gave up and stormed out, throwing the coupons all over the floor.

Related:
A Hot Slice Of Justice, Part 4
A Hot Slice Of Justice, Part 3
A Hot Slice Of Justice, Part 2