I’m hungry and have been looking at online pizza deals, so I guess this will be today’s freewriting topic.
Pizza and I go way back, and it’s a deeper relationship than just I love you because you taste good. For me, pizza represents something significant in my life. It may sound a little sad, but stick with me.
Pizza is a food that you rarely eat alone, and it’s also the go-to option for any group event. For example, every week at youth group in church, we’d gather around a stack of pizza’s digging through the boxes to find the one that best fit how we were feeling at the moment. From ham and pineapple to plain cheese, each represents something different.
Okay, I’m thinking too much into this, but pizza is more than just an item of food. I remember eating at a pizza buffet in Wayland, Michigan (no, you’ve never heard of it) with my dad and brother. After spending all of my money playing an Off-Road Racing video game in the restaurant’s arcade room, I got a plate full of pizza and sat down next to my brother.
For me, no piece of pizza is complete without hot sauce (or red pepper flakes) and parmesan cheese. After dousing a slice on my plate in red pepper flakes, I reached for the parmesan. As I turned the plastic container over to watch the small cheese flakes sprinkle out of the metal top, I saw my brother’s face light up. My plate was soon filled with more parmesan cheese than it was pizza.
Don’t we all have stories about pizza that go beyond a delicious meal?
I remember the time I was at a pizza party and a few friends convinced another that their Alka-Seltzer tablet was a sweet tart. And on several occasions, when someone’s Coca-Cola was contaminated by salt and other condiments when someone went to the restroom, only to return to a disgusting next sip.
To me, pizza is just a delicious food, but it’s also something that brings people together (whether or not that’s always a good thing is up to you). What else can we create, and what can we do, to bring people more together instead of forcing each other further apart?
While I love pizza, nothing compares to the memories created around it. I’m going to spend more time trying to influence positive memories. And while that may not be with pizza, I’m sure that some of these future memories will be.
Thanks pizza.
Love, Michael.