The Pizza Phlebotomist

On Ashlee's suggestion, we went to Old Town Pizza, downtown, for lunch. The pizza was nothing special, but Ashlee's pizza-eating technique made my mouth drop. Just wait: yours will, too. So we each had 2 slices of their veggie pizza on our plates. One glance at the boring looking pizza with thick crust and I knew I needed crushed red pepper and probably salt. Ash leaned over and added a spoonful of what I presumed was salt. I said, "Hit me, too." She gladly doused me with some...sugar. It was sugar. What the fuck?

That was just the beginning. It gets better. I don't know what we were talking about -- it didn't matter, because nothing would have distracted me from what she did with her pizza. She dunked the cheesy tip of the slice into her Diet Coke. I shrieked: "What are you doing?" Unfazed she says, "I've always done it." Okay. "So, where did you get this idea and how long have you been doing this?" "I got it from Jersey. 'been doing it since I was a kid." For real? "Is it a New Jersey thing?" "Yah," she said, "but at this point it's probably more of an Ashlee thing." Nuts.

We proceeded to talk. Whatever, moving on. Do what you want to taint this already boring pizza and greasify what once was a perfectly drinkable soda. Gross. But it gets even better. 

When the cheesy part of her pizza was gone she put the crust down. I thought nothing of it. I didn't want to eat it either, too dry and flavorless. But then she stuck her straw into her soda and covered the end of it with her finger to extract some soda (the way we drank soda when were kids and our parents would say, "stop that!"). Then she INJECTED the soda it into the open end of the crust, with the skill and ease of a veteran phlebotomist. Gross. Oh my. She gleefully munched on the crust. Her face said "yum." I've known Ashlee way too long to have missed this.

Can't knock it till I try it, right? Shit, it was gross. The already bland dough was now soggy and the soda lost its fizz, the fizz that made the soda worth consuming in the first place. "So you do this with any soda?" "No, it has to be cola." "Not even root beer?" "Nope, I prefer the diet cola." Really? Wow.

So I tell this story to a group of friends eating pizza the next weekend and they're all floored. They'd never heard of this and they all know Ashlee well enough to be part intrigued, part shocked. Mavel was mortified. Then the group decided that maybe Ashlee was pulling my leg...y'know to make some excellent blog material. I am a gullible one. But there's no way -- she pulled it off way too naturally for the whole meal to be a spoof. One friend pointed out though: either way, if she was acting or she was for real, it makes a damn good story, virtually unbelievable. Way to go Ash! We love you!