𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐛𝐨𝐲 | robin buckley

(8) mariano's makes good chips

SAM DIDN'T LIKE WORKING IN THE PIZZA PLACE but then again, who did? She was grateful for a job that was simply under her feet. Whenever she was scheduled in for a shift, she could wake up ten minutes before it and crawl downstairs to see her coworkers eyeing her in jealously. Maybe if they saw the interior of the place she lived they wouldn't be so keen to swap places.

She shifted between making the pizzas to serving the customers, sat by the phone that only started ringing after six pm. However she was often in all day regardless. Sometimes people would walk past and buy a polystyrene tub of greased up fries. The place never opened before three because realistically who was ordering pizza in the morning? Sam said this often however her breakfast was pretty much cold pizza after cold pizza.

Living on her own meant that Sam could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted and if this meant eating pizza whenever the hell she wanted then that's exactly what she was going to do. Sam did suppose pizza for lunch wouldn't be a horrible thought although there were so many pizza places that no one was ever going to find sorrow in the idea that this singular, kinda shitty pizza place wasn't open until the afternoon.

The job was rather simple. Making pizzas really wasn't that difficult and there was never a high expectation to make them perfectly. Sam didn't like the hairnet or the lack of fringe it left her with nor did she enjoy the feeling of the thin plastic gloves on her hands but she did like leaving her headphones on, Walkman tucked in the large pocket of her tomato red apron. That way when she was lost in the words of The Cure or The Doors she didn't really have to think about the idiot who had ordered pineapple on their pizza with extra olives.

Her shifts were usually seven hours but time always dragged on and often since she had to close up the place it would be twelve before she was finally traipsing up the stairs to crawl into her unmade bed.

Sam didn't mind spreading the often lumpy tomato sauce onto the dough or placing toppings in a precise way. However she didn't like talking to the customers, this was her limit. People were such assholes it made her want to rip out her hair from the roots and shove it down her throat.

People were never very nice. If their pizzas were even a minute late then Sam was a disgusting cunt, ugly bitch or a fucking waste of space. She'd heard it all at this point and she'd always give the same bored and uncaring expression while she pictured what would happen if the ceiling caved in right there and killed her. That would be nice.

However at least Sam didn't have to use the delivery bike. First of all, Sam couldn't drive so the idea of her trying to work that contraption with a box of pizzas strapped to her back was humorous but she knew that the two delivery drivers (Todd and Micheal) got way more grief than anyone else. After all if a pizza was late, who else would they yell at?

Sam liked staying behind inside the kitchen, listening to her music and lazily dropping sliced mushrooms and bits of ham onto her tomato base. She was getting very good at making pizzas although no one would ever compliment her on it. Sam knew this wasn't a very difficult job yet she also was very pleased when her tomato and cheese ratio was perfectly intact. There wasn't much else to get excited about in that occupation.

When Sam was behind the counter, she couldn't listen to her music which immediately made it worse than making the pizzas. She had to answer the phone with a very forged voice and hope that no one picked up on the sarcasm that laced her tongue. It was a poisonous trait that she couldn't even get rid of anymore.

It was excruciatingly boring sometimes, watching people walk past the store or staring at the sky getting gradually darker. She didn't get on with any of her coworkers which meant there was no casual conversation to keep her going while she waited. Hours turned into days as she rested her forearms against the counter and drummed her fingers as though pretending the voices of Robert Smith or David Byrne were filling her ears.