The Greasy Pizza

When one door shuts...

When the waitress came out with the all-meat and black olive pizza, it was swimming in grease. Martin asked Karla the waitress – a classmate of Martin’s – for extra napkins.

Tina served her newest boyfriend, Martin, the first slice before serving herself. After Karla set a stack of napkins on the table, Martin began tapping the pizza with the napkins to absorb the excess grease.

Tina winced and said, “What are you doing, Martin?”

“Planning for the future,” he said as he continued blotting the pizza.

“Future? What are you talking about? You’re doing that in public?”

“Less grease to clog the arteries, Tina. Sure. Why not?”

“It’s not at all embarrassing to you?” Tina asked.

“Why? Should it be?”

“Well, yeah,” Tina said. “You’re embarrassing me to death, Martin.”

“Really? Why?”

Tina said, “Well, duh. You’re disrespecting the cooks. You’re telling them that their pizza is greasy. You’re embarrassing the wait staff too.”

For the first time since the napkins arrived, Martin stopped blotting the pizza. He was beginning to think there might not be a second date with this girl.

“Tina,” Martin said. “On a scale of one to ten, ten being highest, how high is absorbing the grease from this pizza embarrassing to you?”

“12 or 13 maybe.”

“Really? Really? Wow.” Martin said as he resumed patting down his pizza. He was close to being finished with his first slice.

“I am so out of here, Martin. Good luck finding someone who will tolerate a slob like you.”

Martin didn’t try to stop her but shrugged and watched as his blonde date flipped her hair in disgust at Martin and walked out the door. He raised his hand to get Karla’s attention.

“What’s up, Martin? What do you need?”

“Say, Karla, um, just curious, but does it bother you or the cooks that I, um, well…?”

She noticed the pile of napkins on the table.

“Pat down the pizza to soak up the grease?” Karla asked, finishing Martin’s sentence.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Hardly. Doesn’t bother us a bit. Happens all the time. Great pizza if you do that. What happened to, er…?“

Martin said, “Oh, her? Had some issues I guess. I was grossing her out and embarrassing her, or so she said.”

“Over absorbing grease? Okaaaay. In that case, let me know if you wanna catch a movie over the weekend. Might even get a pizza afterwards, not here though.”

“Sure, Karla. I’d like that. Talk to you about it after English Lit tomorrow. I see you’re pretty busy.”

“Sounds fun.” Karla said.

As Karla turned to walk away, she leaned over and whispered into Martin’s ear, “Just between you and me, I didn’t like her either.”

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