If you don’t like pizza or if you’re an I could take it or leave it type about pizza, then this will make no sense to you, so I release you.
This is a rant. This is only a rant. If this were actual news, you would be directed where to get more information. As this is not news and is, as mentioned before, a rant, there is no escape.
If you don’t like pizza or if you’re an I could take it or leave it type about pizza, then this will make no sense to you, so I release you. Go. Click away. Or stay and learn. Up to you.
If you’re one of those model-thin, heroine chic people who say things like, “I said the word cookie three times today, I’m so fat, I need to spend an extra fifty-three days in the gym. TODAY!” I don’t like you, so I don’t mind if you choose not to read this.
For the rest, yes, Leap Year is a conspiracy set up to ruin my life.
Like most conspiracy theories, this one is built on emotion, and lack of information, and a massive portion of the world revolves around me-ism. Doesn’t mean it’s not true; it just means you have to understand the minutia of how the world really works, the secret underground covenants that brew their life-altering hate in underground offices. I know, so I am sharing this particular conspiracy theory so you’ll all know the truth.
Here we go.
The Best Pizza (H2)
In my new adopted hometown of Port Angeles, Washington, there are pizza shops. Of course, there are because no matter the town's size, it is civilized, and civilization means pizza. Yes, yes, language, writing, a system of government, and the word cattywampus are all signs that a place is civilized. I say meh to that and firmly believe that any town, city, burb, colony, or conclave is civilized only if they have at least two pizza shops. One can be a chain shop, but one must be a local, mom-and-pop type joint. A town with just a Pizza Hut or Dominoes is a sham and is faking civilization for nefarious reasons. Probably because that “town” is a front for Commies and illicit Yak vendors.
Pizza, one of the few pure joys in life, is vital to civilization. When you leave the town you’ve lived in for twenty years and strike for something new, one of the things that brings a weary, unsure traveler comfort is finding the pizza shop. One with variety, reasonable prices, and pizza that has been touched by the finger of God and thus has a taste that is unrivaled across the land and sea. When you find that particular pizza shop, you hold on for dear life. You patronize it, you shout it out on social media, but most of all, you look forward to the day when your budget and the stars align and you can order a pizza. No other pizza will do; it must be that pizza. When you find that, you can begin to settle down and make that town your own.
I have been fortunate that I have found such a pizza shop and such a God-anointed pizza.
My shop is The Strait Slice. It is so named because Port Angeles overlooks the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a body of water separating Washington from British Columbia. So, on the corner of First and Lincoln Streets lives this magical, delightful culinary wonder shop.
A Kink in the Pizza Chain (H2)
One day in late December, I got online and prepared to order a pizza from Strait Slice. All week, I had been dreaming of a meatball and onion pizza, with that crust that is a sublime combination of crispy and chewy, a mild yet peppy saice and those life-altering homemade meatballs. I was salivating as I jumped online to order, and then, oh, horror on horror’s head, right there, on the home page was a banner that read:
Happy New Year, We Will be closed til March 1st.
This was the end of December. This meant that for two months, I would not have pizza. Oh, I could order from Dominoes, whose neon sign flashes deals outside my bathroom window. I could walk two blocks and patronize a Pizza Hut; however, not only is their pizza dull and close to inedible, but they have committed the sin of sins: they have verbed a noun, “no one out pizzas the Hut.” Pizza is a noun, not a verb. You cannot conjugate the word pizza. Okay, if you stretch it, maybe. I pizza, you pizza, he/she/it pizzas. But that’s a grammatical abortion and should not be condoned. My other option is Pappa Murpheys and their famed take-and-bake pizza. Now, I will admit that when I have been in a jam in a pizza-depressed town, I have patronized this joint, and the results were not terrible. I actually enjoy a Papa Murphey’s pie, but usually when my other options are chains or, gasp, no pizza at all.
So, there I am, facing the no pizza for two months notice and wondering how I’ll survive.
“It’s just two months,” a kind friend assured me, “and one of those months is very short.” She was correct; I calmed myself. Two months is not that long and one of those months is a mere shadow of a month; this will be over before you know it, and then, the sweet, sweet relief of pizza.
Then I realized this is a leap year. There is an extra day in February. There is an additional day before I can have pizza.
If this were a normal year, tomorrow would be March the first, and I would have a beautiful, perfect, delectable pizza sitting on my kitchen counter, and I would be delivered from this pizza desert at last.
NOT SO MUCH.
Instead, the powers that be, probably the government, have conspired against me and my pizza need by randomly tossing an extra day into this February. Why? Because the government hates us ot have choices, and in particular, they don’t want me to have my favorite pizza. That’s what leap year is all about. Conspiracy.
But what about … (H2)
Yes, I know what you’re going to say: Leap year is a necessity, and it was set up in 1582; Pope Gregory XIII adopted the Gregorian calendar, which we now use, and specified that all years that can be divided by four are leap years.
You’ll go further and point out that if we didn’t observe a leap year in 100 years, the calendars would be off by 24 days. Because it takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to orbit the sun, those extra days, hours, and minutes don’t just disappear. They would still exist, and in 100 years, July would happen in the coldest part of the year.
Yes, yes, sure, okay, fine, throw science and “logic” at me all you want, but I know the truth.
The Truth (H2)
The government likes chain shops. They want them because the Dominos in Port Angeles are precisely like the ones in Seattle, Cleveland, Boston, or Dallas. Eventually, the government will grab up all the towns and cities and make one giant city. That city will be full of chain stores and restaurants, and yet we’ll be so numb to it, so used to no variation, that we will accept being in that city and eat their crappy pizza.
Once we’re all in that giant city, with no pizza variations, and we’ve accepted it, they will be in control. They will slowly remove all sorts of choices, and what follows will be government officials impregnating women with an embryo that looks like whoever is in charge, and we will eventually be one person. One government-cloned and controlled human being, eating second-rate pizza and watching Dane Cook do stand-up.
That’s the damn truth. I know it. It’s all they and them and what they will do when it suits them, and they will control, so we worship them and on and on. I’m talking Pizza Hut and Dane Cook here. Lord, deliver us.
Leap Year (H2)
So, you see, it’s all a conspiracy. It’s all about the government adding an extra day to February, so I cannot satisfy my deep, serious, possibly medical need for pizza. It’s about being controlled by the dark forces of the secret shadow government and allowing ourselves to be controlled. I, for one, will not stand for it. I do not accept this whole leap-year thing. I say we stand up and tell the government they can shove the Georgian calendar right up their …
Hold on.
The banner on Strait Slice’s website just changed; they are open tomorrow.
Never mind.
