Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Pizza

We’re not hermits.  We don’t live somewhere in the middle of Montana with the bomb makers and gun lovers.  We’re approximately 30 stupid miles from our Nation’s Capital.  The capital of the free world if you will. Yet we fine Americans living in this house are constantly and continually denied one inalienable right that is clearly stated in Article 33.8/4-1 of the United States Constitution and Section 12, Paragraph 3, Line 4 (if you use the King James Edition) of the Declaration of Independence.   Sure, we can carry guns.  The women-folk in this house can even vote now.  But do you know what we can’t have done?

We can’t have one single food item delivered to our house.

I know.  You’re aghast at the very thought of some simple right like that being denied.  I’m equally aghast.  More aghast than you can imagine.  I’m super-aghast even.

Oh, there have been attempts by places to deliver here.  There was a time about 10 years ago where this ramshackle joint down the street provided us with a mixture of “meat” and “vegetables” piled together in a varying combination of ways that amounted to, for lack of a better word – “food”.  We were excited about it, not because the food was good (it wasn’t) and not because it was cheap (it wasn’t) but simply because we could sit on our fine old American butts and have people bring us bad food.

NOW THAT IS AMERICA!

Here’s some vibrant pictures of the place that used to deliver to us.  You’ll note that there is a fine looking machine with a wonderful paint job parked squarely in front of the place.

I posted these in order as you drive up and through their parking lot.  It’s like old-time video if you flip through them really quickly.

An editorial note here – to get these pictures I actually stopped traffic on a fairly major road.  I had to get the exact correct angle you know.  That’s the kind of death-defying journalism that happens in this blog.  In fact, this reminds me of a story that my good friend Stacey relayed to me about a man named Carl.  Carl once stopped rush hour traffic on a major road because he was compelled to save a turtle that he saw crossing the road.  The only problem was that when he ran into the road to complete his daring rescue of the reptile, it turned out to be a chunk of dirt.  She still affectionately refers to this story as the “Dirtle Story”.  But I digress.

As you can tell from the above pictures, this isn’t the Ponderosa Steakhouse.  It’s a hybrid deli/grocery store/auto garage/CRAFTED. (what the heck does that even mean?) shop.  During our time we’ve lived here, it’s also housed a Western Store (selling cowboy hats to the fine folks of Northern Virginia), garden center, pet supply store, saddlery store, ice cream shop, and also had a food truck parked in front selling ice cream.  This was also the store that I went and bought a cake mix (because it’s the closest place to us) and when I got it home noticed that it had expired two years previously.  I didn’t see the expiration date at the store because I neglected to blow the dust off the box until I had gotten it home.

So that was our one attempt at food delivery.  We’ve had other restaurants tease us with flyers in the AMERICAN mail offering delivery to us, but when we call them we are ALWAYS told that the delivery range only runs to the street in front of us – approximately 100 feet from our house.  Don’t think that we haven’t been tempted to set up a temporary address in my pickup truck at the intersection and just wait for the fine young man to pull up with his tasty morsels.

So why this rant?  Because we recently got a Dominos Pizza approximately 6 miles from our house.  It just opened this weekend.  We didn’t even check their delivery radius for fear of yet another country snubbery.  That is, until my daughter came home this week for Spring Break and was craving Dominos.  We dutifully gathered around the computer and pulled up their website to see if we could order.  We’ve been stopped by the evil Communist regimes in the past – would this be different?  We gathered around the screen like mosquitos flocking to a citronella candle.  What would be the outcome?  WHAT WOULD BE THE OUTCOME???

We were allowed to place an order.  With our REAL address (not my pickup truck faux address).  There is no doubt that the tattered flag held on by one corner at the purple house across the street was flying a little prouder and taller that day.  We ALL stood up a little prouder and taller.  Proud to be an American and proud to be a part of this growing food delivery empire.

Note that ironically we didn’t follow through with the order because we weren’t really hungry at the time, and we had just had Dominos the day before, BUT there is finally hope in the little hamlet of Haymarket for one lazy, American family.   I have no doubt that they will deliver to our house the first time with no problem, and we’ll check the website the very next day and get the traditional:

“Sorry – your address is valid for pick-up only”

And the eagle sitting on the flag across the street will sob uncontrollably.