Slice of Life: A Sausage Pizza for the Vegetarian

I try not to eat out very often when I'm at work, but some weeks just don't go very smoothly. This week was one of those crazy ones. Between spending two days at home dealing with the almost-end to my struggle with the apartment complex and the trip to the vet for my cat's dental cleaning, lunches weren't being made as usual. So in times like these, I usually go to one of my fallback places.

Today's choice was Randy's Pizza.

I love Randy's Pizza. They have the least pretentious salad in the area. Seriously. Most places these days feature salads with cranberries, feta, and slivers of whatever they felt like toasting today. And most of the time, I just don't want that crap. Please, just give me a hearty salad with a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions! Randy's Pizza delivers on that, plus they add banana peppers and a lot of mozzarella. It just can't be beat.

So I went in and ordered the usual salad with the one-topping slice of pizza. I always ask for mushroom cause I can't think of anything tastier than fresh mushrooms. They're always so pleasant in there and today they were especially so. Usually they just holler at me and I come grab my food. They didn't even give me the chance. My salad showed up right away and I went to happily munching on it like a bunny.

Then my pizza showed up. It was fresh out of the oven and steaming, so I hardly noticed that there was something amiss. I was busy reading through the tweets I'd miss while at work. Came across an article about why eBooks can't be bought in English out of the US and was trying to remind myself to read it later (Putting that in here so that I still remember to read it later...hah!) Realized I had finished more than half of my salad, it was time for a bite of pizza.

I was so excited about how many mushrooms they threw on top. So amazing! But it looked strange..."What is that on my pizza? Is that...sausage?"

It's pretty sad that I wasn't quite sure what sausage on pizza looked like. I haven't been a vegetarian** for *that* long!

So I got up from my seat and walked back up to the counter with the slice, "Excuse me...I hate to do this to you...but is this sausage?" The guy looks at the pizza and says, "Yes Ma'am, it is." I wish I knew what my face looked like in that moment, probably was red with embarrassment. I've turned away food one time. I don't care if my order is wrong 98% of the time, I eat it and move on. The anxiety of thinking about turning away food is enough to keep me from doing it. But...it's a little harder to do that since I made the switch to veg.

"I'm really sorry, I asked for just the mushroom slice. You see, I'm a vegetarian."

The guy was so nice about it. He found my order and was trying to figure out what happened. They put in another slice for me and apologized profusely. I could hear them talking through the back like they offended my religion or something. "She's a *vegetarian* and you gave her *sausage*!"

It sounded like the person that took my order had simply written down the wrong thing and tried to scribble it out, but the next person didn't catch the scribbley-ness. Really no big deal. But they seemed genuinely upset about it, like I would never come back because of the error. Trust me, I'd go there every day if it wasn't for the fact that I try to be gluten free most days. One day I'll kick the stuff, but for now...gluten is going to happen every so often.

Also, they're just so nice in there and they seem to get to know their regulars pretty well - A sign of a great small business if you ask me. Every time I go in, there's someone coming in for "the usual" and some quick conversation about sports. I love that kind of atmosphere. There's no fuss; it's just laid back and honest.

Anyway, I really can't stress how good the employees' of Randy's were to me. Some places act like you've ruined their life by turning back food and I understand that. But when I'm trying to be as nice as possible about any issues, I don't want to deal with angry employees. I'd really rather not eat food that I have to worry about whether someone spit in it out of spite.

So in my head I keep thinking, when can I go back? I want to go back soon enough that they still remember me. I really just want them to know I'm not running around spreading meanness about a mistake. Plus, I really want another salad...Seriously, they're delicious.

**Heck, I'm technically a pescatarian...but there's an awful lot of people in my area that think vegetarians eat chicken so I keep it simple.