The Great Phone Number Mishap: Why I Can’t Order Pizza Without Cringing

We all have them. Those little moments, frozen in time, that we replay in our heads and cringe. Maybe you tripped up the stairs at graduation. Or accidentally called your boss “Mom.” Me? My personal chamber of cringe-worthy memories centers around pizza. Specifically, ordering pizza.

The Night the Pizza Dreams Turned into Nightmares

It was a dark and stormy night… okay, it was probably a Tuesday, and the weather was probably fine. But the details aren’t important. What matters is that I was craving pizza. Like, really craving pizza. The kind of craving that makes you forget to check if you have clean dishes because who needs plates when you have delicious, cheesy goodness?

I grabbed my phone, dialed the familiar number of my local pizzeria (Luigi’s, if you’re wondering, and their pepperoni? *Chef’s kiss*), and launched into my usual order: “Hi, yeah, I’d like a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese…” Then it happened. The phone on the other end clicked, a new voice answered, and suddenly I was catapulted into the Twilight Zone of wrong numbers.

“Is Your Refrigerator Running?”

It wasn’t just any wrong number. Oh no, fate had a much crueler joke in store for me. The voice on the other end belonged to a young boy, no older than eight, who was clearly delighted to have a captive audience. Before I could even stutter an apology, he unleashed the most predictable question in the history of wrong numbers:

“Is your refrigerator running?”