Imagine, if you will, four exhausted camp counselors, still hungry from an unsatisfying dining hall dinner. After a short period of deliberation, they resolve to order two large cheese pizzas from Mario's Original, the pizzeria nearest their dormitory.
The pies are requested. The counselors are told they will arrive in forty-five minutes. Thirty-five sixty-second units later, they receive a sacred transmission: their pizzas have arrived. Euphoria washes over them; their anguish quickly transforms into ecstasy.
The four of them rush down the steps to the lobby of their building, where awaiting them are what they assume to be two fresh pies, piping hot and made with love. After receiving the pizzas from the driver, they rush back to the air conditioned comfort of their room, prepared to sate their appetites with cheese, crust, and tomato. However, the items that rested within the corrugated vessels were not as they anticipated.
They lift the top of the first box to find a pizza that's cheese had relocated. What lied within the box resembled a pyroclastic flow of parmesan; a mudslide of mozzarella. The cheese had settled into a swirl resemblant of that of a bowling ball: a red, yellow, and orange typhoon splayed across a white canvas. A large pool of greasy cheese had migrated off of the crust entirely, adhering itself to the cardboard sarcophagus.
Dismayed, but not discouraged, the counselors opened the other box, hoping to find a gem of a pizza (or, at the very least, one that contained all of its original cheese). They became crestfallen as they found that not only had the mozzarella had done a similar tango across the starchy dance floor, but that the pizza had been haphazardly cut. The pie had been scored into approximately nine and a half incredibly large pieces, not the customary twelve.
The counselors, as despondent as peckish, called Mario's to inform them of their situation. A man who introduced himself as Mario (who much to their dismay, sounded nothing like the star of the popular Nintendo series) heard their complaints, apologized for the inconvenience, and after a somewhat incoherent rambling about customers swindling him for free pizza, agreed to send two fresh pizzas to the counselors at no extra cost, so long as they exchanged the unsatisfactory pizzas.
Anticipation mounted as they awaited their new pizzas. Although the estimated time of delivery was unspecified, their wait felt longer than they expected it to be. After a time, the phone rings: their replacement pizzas had arrived. They had been saved! They again rushed downstairs, ecstatic in their pursuit of the perfect pies.
But, the familiar feeling of dread returned as they opened the boxes. The cheese had once again slid in its transport, forming a similar swirl pattern on the crust and a greasy swamp beyond it.
Crushed, they opened the second box. Again, cheese similar to lava, and almost cut in an impossibly similar fashion as the sloppily cut pie they had received originally.
They decided that a second call to the video game namesake was not worth it, and proceeded to consume the pizzas they had ordered. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the pizzas tasted as they looked. Overly salty, with no tomato flavor to speak of, the pies satisfied the counselors' stomachs, but not their tastebuds. One pizza was eaten entirely, while the second one was donated to their campers.
Needless to say, Mario's Original blows. read more