Embrace life with poo pizza

I’ve brought Emily to my favourite pizza place where I used to come as a teenager.

“I used to tear off some pizza crust, hollow it out and pack it with toppings,” I inform Emily. “I called it a ‘mammich.’”

Perhaps as much to share with me her own past as to keep me from sharing any more stories that involve the word ‘mammich,’ Emily launches into a pizza story from her teen years.

She’d just broken up with her boyfriend. Thinking it’d make for a nice transition into friendship, Emily suggested they take in a baseball game. But with the kiss cam alighting on couples every few minutes, they were in a constant state of anxiety about ending up on the Jumbotron and having to kiss.

Emily’s ex had just moved into a new apartment so after the game he invited her over to see the place. They were starving by then so they ordered a pizza. When it arrived, they opened the box to reveal, written on the inside of the lid in black pen, the word, “poo.”

“There was no mistaking what it said?” I ask. “Poo?” “P.O.O.,” she says. “Poo.” “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That’s what my ex asked,” she said. “I just wanted to eat the pizza and get on with it, so I convinced myself that it stood for pepperoni, onions and olives.”

“Was it a pepperoni, onions and olive pizza?”

“No,” she says. “But I had to find a way to explain it.”

“And even if it was a pepperoni, onion and olive pizza,” I say, “you’d think they’d have figured out that O.P.O. might be a better acronym.”

“My ex took it as an aggressively nefarious sign,” she says. “While I was committed to the idea that we are going to eat this pizza, he was equally committed to the idea that we were not going to eat it. But I needed to live in a world where people haven’t done something evil to a pizza for no particular reason.” “You’re an optimist,” I say. “In fairness, I was also hungrier,” she admits. “But when I put the pizza in my mouth and ate it there was a feeling of not being ruled by fear and skepticism. I felt like I was embracing the world.”

I tear off a piece of crust, rip it open like a hotdog bun and pack it full of olives, onions and pepperoni.

“One poo mammich,” I say offering my creation to Emily. After some hesitation, and perhaps against her better judgment, she pops it in her mouth and embraces life.