Pizza

If you live on the Cowley Road and tonight you ordered a pizza which never arrived, I'm sorry.

It wasn't my fault.

I live in the Ablethorpe Building, affectionately known as Dale. My room is 49, also known as Sunset Tower because it's in a tower and has a big window that looks into the sunset. Yeah, I'm semi-mythical. Anyways, most of my tower-mates were out to various functions so I decided to have a shower, a few rounds of Sleuth Noir, and curl up in bed with Carl Sagan* at a reasonable hour.
*An experience I can strongly recommend, by the way.

So I was Sleuthing away when the entryphone out in our corridor buzzed.
"Pizza for room 47?"
Having never used the entryphone before, I tentatively hit the keylock button and walked over to room 47 (Quad Tower) and knocked on the door. No answer. Hmm. Well, she listens to music through headphones sometimes. Door's locked. Hmm.

Time for a status report. I'm in my pjamas, somewhere three floors below me there's a bewildered pizza delivery man. The intented recipient isn't in, and I have no money to pay the man, as I understand you do in these situations. Right.

At this point I do what may have been the first sensible act of the day. I phoned the alledged consumer and no, she didn't know a thing about it.

It turns out they wanted 47 Cowley Road, which is a few doors up. Standing on the street in barefeet, pjamas and a hastily grabbed sweatshirt, this seemed suprisingly difficult to communicate. The thought did cross my mind that I was being softened up for some light stabbing, but it turns out they just weren't entirely clear what I was on about with my "You want 47 Cowley Road. This isn't it, it's just a building with a room 47".
I don't want to be cynical, but I suppose swiftness of mind isn't a prerequisite for a career in pizza delivery.

How different things might have been had I had a note in my wallet. I'd probably have unthinkingly bought your pizza and put in the kitchen for when Mariko got back. My, she'd have been suprised.

So if you're still waiting for your pizza, last I saw it was in the back of a car while the bickering delivery men were smoking bemused cigarettes and wondering what I had meant.

I think you'd best get some beans on toast started.

Song in my head: "Pure Morning" by Placebo