Pepperoni Pizza

Why does everyone order mushrooms and peppers and sausage and eggplant and stray dogs and astral projections and loose teeth and all manner of exotic toppings for their pizza when what they really want is just plain pepperoni? I swear, every time you order a pizza with a group of people and you ask, "what do you guys want on the pizza" they'll throw out a bunch of stuff to put on it...and then one guy (me) says, "okay, and a pepperoni pizza too." Sure enough, when the pizzas come, the pepperoni is the first to go while the eggplant pizza remains untouched. That mushroom and bell pepper pizza is going to be in the fridge for weeks before it either gets thrown out or someone gets desperate enough to eat it. wtf people? Why don't you just order a pepperoni pizza if that's what you want? Why don't you just get what you want?

Maybe it's different where you're from. Maybe when you ask what kind of topping people want, everyone goes "pepperoni, duh. Don't be stupid." That's not how it is in Los Angeles. People here are more concerned with what everyone else thinks of them than they are about their own satisfaction and comfort. Everyone wants people to think that they're open-minded, forward thinking health nuts who love little African AIDS babies and donate their paychecks to charity. They'll hold up a "No on Prop 8" sign then vote yes to hate and discrimination in the privacy of the ballot boothe. I guess people are like that everywhere...wanting others to think the best of them. But do you have to go so far as to order food you and every other sane human being hates just so you can delude yourself into thinking they're saying to themselves "oh, wow, he's so open minded and health conscious to order a tofu pizza. I'm going to sleep with him."

People in my office do this crap all the time and it drives me crazy. Every time I go out to buy office snacks, I ask what everyone wants. What do they ask for? "Oh, just some granola would be fine." Granola? Are you serious? Squirrels won't even touch that crap. If I tried to feed my dog granola, he would sniff it then look up at me like "wtf is this sh**?" No one likes granola, but okay, sure I'll pick up some granola at the grocery store...along with things people actually eat. And sure enough, I'll come back with cookies, chips, candy, and assorted heavenly delights along with the aforementioned granola. Not 5 minutes goes by until the kitchen looks like cookie monster just passed through. Seriously, those new-fangled packages have a litle resealable tab to keep the product fresh but no, in their haste to stuff their face, the package has been torn open with tooth and nail. And strangely the granola they wanted remains untouched...for weeks.

Geez, can you just be honest with yourself and those around you? Can you drop the fake concern, the manufactured open-mindedness, the false forward thinking and just be yourself? No one has their life together. No one is perfect. No one really and truly cares about the things they should care about. Instead of making so much fuss and effort to fit in, why don't you put that same effort into actually improving yourself? Stop pretending to be a better person and make an effort to become a better person. Maybe one day you'll be ready for supreme, but in the mean time stop lying to yourself and just order a pepperoni pizza.