“E-ov”

The abbreviated words stood out to me like a middle finger in a church parking lot. An insult. A moral wrong.

I had been working at Gerseppi’s Pasta and Pizzeria for three years now, and I had known, all that time, that this day would come. Though I had prayed daily, agonizing with the Eternal Father to spare me this dilemma, the day had still arrived. Some poor, sadistic, freak with defunct tastebuds had finally requested the ultimate evil.

Extra Olives.

I pressed my mouth into the fabric of my faded red Gerseppi’s Pizzeria polo and muffled a cry of frustration. How dare they- How DARE they send such a request into my kitchen. How dare they allow it to pass the threshold of the ticket window. How dare they.

It would have been easier to excuse if the order had come from the new girl, Neveah. Just a spunky little know-nothing teenager that had never worked in a pizzeria before. I could have ignored that. I could have just corrected the order without a second thought, and then informed her of proper pizzaria etiquette afterwards. Oh, how easy it would have been if only the order had come from her.

I fixed my eyes upon the culprit of my moral dilemma as the fat, greasy, son-of-a-moldy-onion-peel waddled into the kitchen like he owned the place. Partially, of course, because he did.

“Gerseppi!” I started, my voice rising to a roar by the end of his unnecessarily long first name.

“What is it this time, Rodney?” Gerseppi replied in that tired, annoyed New Yorker accent of his.

I held up the grease-stained ticket with Gerseppi’s grimy fingerprint plastered plainly on it.

“What is this? Extra Olives? You let some Bonehead order extra olives and then have the nerve to send it into my kitchen?”

“Just make the order and send it out, Rod. Don’t make a big deal out of it like you did when I switched to whole wheat flour.”

“Whole wheat flour is a blaspheme to pizza!!” My voice cracked under the force of my fury. “But I made it anyway!! But extra olives, Gerseppi?? That’s a bridge too far!”

Gerseppi smashed his fist down on a plump, juicy tomato, launching freshly-made tomato sauce in every direction like a wave of Italian vengeance across the disarranged kitchen.

“You’ll make that pizza and you’ll make it now!!” His sweaty jowls undulated with fury as smashed tomato dripped down off of them.

“I’d sooner die!” I screamed back, launching a flurry of chopped habaneros into his face. He screamed in agony as the pepper juice filled his eyes before reaching for a knife and launching it at my head. I ducked under the projectile, leaving it free to slice into the gas line behind me. Quickly, I jerked up the hot skillet of cherries for my cherries Jubilie and ignited it with the gas stovetop. I pulled on the copper line, aiming it at Gerseppi’s face before holding the flaming skillet up to the escaping fumes.

A line of fire billowed out toward Gerseppi, but the oily hog doused the flame with a bucket of discount alfredo sauce and then threw the emptied bucket at me. I attempted to dodge but the sauce on the floor hindered my normally graceful movements, putting me in the unfortunate position of having a bucket lined with expired alfredo sauce on my head. I wretched and stumbled back into more sauce, quickly losing my footing, causing me to fall against the pasta bowls, launching spaghetti, ziti, rotini, and gnocchi into the air.

I tore the bucket from my head, scrambling to my feet, expecting the italian whale to be waddling toward me with all his might. Gerseppi, however, was still where he had been previously standing, his face blanched white and his eyes wide as saucers. He made an odd sound in his throat and fell to his knees.

“He’a choking!” One of the low-rent, untalented, minimum-wage line cooks exclaimed.

“What??” I exclaimed in horror

“One of the gnocchi balls launched into his throat and got stuck!”

Gerseppi’s eyes were starting to roll back into his head and he began shaking all over, his rolls of fat jiggling like cold lard on a serving tray.

“Gerseppi!” I cried with utmost despair. Desperate to save him, I rushed to his side and tried to wrap my arms around his midsection to give him the heimlich maneuver. My efforts were entirely in vain, however. He was much too wide and cylindrical. Panicking, I searched my mind for a solution. What was the one thing that could make Gerseppi wretch? Then it hit me. I ran to the vegetable chopping station and grabbed the one thing I knew would make Gerseppi’s stomach reject everything it has ingested, taking anything else in the way, along with it. Olives.

I rushed back to Gerseppi’s side and shoved a handful of the dreadful orbs into his mouth and forced his powerful jaws shut. His eyes instantly refocused, all sign of irises gone as he blanched whiter than the bleached flour he no longer allowed us to cook with.

The flurry of things that came out of that man's mouth would haunt me for years to come. Mcdonald’s burgers, children’s toys, three decomposing rats, and even a piece of tablecloth that had a bundle of grapes printed on it. I shuddered and decorated the floor with my own lunch of oranges and chewed up bread.

Both of us fell onto our backs, our chests heaving.

“I’m sorry, boss, I’ll do what you say next time, I promise,” I told him. He shook his head and waved his hand, but still didn’t respond for several long seconds.

“Na, na, you was right, Rodney. I shouldn't've accepted that order. I should have kept the status quo. I’m sorry, I hope you can forgive me.”

“Forgiven boss, forgiven.”

Gerseppi’s sighed and rolled over to get up. I followed, a bit more nimbly. We wiped our hands off on our aprons, sheepishly and nodded to each other before heading back to work. After I had reached my station, just before Gerseppi stepped back out into the dining room, he turned to me.

“Oh by the way, table four said they want you to add black pepper to their cheesy bread.”

“I’ll never do it!” I screamed, throwing my pot of steaming hot marinara sauce at his face. He ducked and grabbed a porcelain plate, launching it like a frisbee while screaming:

“You’ll do it and you’ll like it!!”

The doctor tells me I should be able to return to work Friday. Gerseppi said I have to be back by Wednesday. In response, I mailed him an envelope full of olives I had stashed in my apron.