I arrived at Pizza Hut a little early, to discover that this particular one has some crazy temporary hours, probably due to the inability to maintain staff. (That happens when you generally disregard the general humanity of your employees.) This one opened at noon, so I waited outside in my car with the radio on, until my grandparents showed up, at which point I joined them in their car and told them all about my new job, in which I share an office with a cat.

A little after noon, a truck pulled up, idled across three parking spaces, and let out of its passenger door a dishevelled looking girl. Something was a little off, but I wasn't quite sure what at the time. When she went to the door, it was unlocked from within, and we followed inside. There, we discovered she was our server.

She came to take our drink order, and my grandmother asked her if they still had that deal where the next three pizzas are five bucks each. She said she didn't know... Then, slowly, she thought to ask if we wanted her to go check. When she came back, she took our drink order. While she was gone, my brother and his girlfriend showed up. She returned with our drinks, and stood there looking confused, until his girlfriend asked for a sprite, and he asked for a mountain dew. Then, she went to the door to seat someone.

There was something wrong with my root beer, so after she had sat them down and was walking past our table, I called out to her, "Excuse me." She looked at me, as she passed, having understood that I had spoken, and kept going. "EXCUSE ME." Startled, she came over to me. I asked for a new drink, and asked if she would repeat for us the drink orders that she had taken from my brother and his girlfriend. It took her a minute, but she guessed, "Sprite and a pepsi, right?"

"Mountain Dew," my brother corrected her, and she went on her merry little way. Another brother of mine showed up. When she returned with a sprite for my younger brother's girlfriend she tried to give him a pepsi, my older brother asked for a water. On her way she went. Two cousins showed up, and we had probably fifteen minutes to catch up with each other, before the waitress returned with my older brother's water and my younger brother's sprite. "Mountain Dew," he corrected her.

She stood confused for a moment, looking at the remaining drinks she had brought, none of which actually belonged to our table. One of my cousins ordered a pepsi, the other ordered a root beer. I recommended against it, so she ordered the sprite that the girl had brought for my brother.

Finally, when my younger brother got his Mountain Dew, he discovered it to be in the same condition as the root beer. He ended up asking for a Pepsi instead.

"We shouldn't be expecting too much from her," said my Sprite-drinking cousin, "She couldn't even get her shirt done up right." That was what I couldn't place before, and only because most of the buttons hadn't been buttoned at that time. Now we could see that she had each button one notch too high. Also, my cousin remembered her as her riding student, who had been at the same level for three years, while children half her age had progressed quite well.

A moment or two after everyone had their proper drinks, drinks that didn't taste funny, the first of our pizzas arrived. With this particular group, it was thought to be a good idea to order three larges--two hawaiians and a meat-lover's. This was a wise choice, as we love our pizza. However, since the second pizza is cheaper anyway, we ordered a fourth--another hawaiian. This is funny because we ordered larges. It's also funny because when the pizza arrived, brought to us by a compenent waitress who has served us well for years, we wondered at two things: the two she had brought, as our firsts, were both a little on the small side, and they were both meat-lovers.

At our protests, she was caught off guard. "She didn't tell you about the larges?" she asked. Apparently, they were out of large crusts, or large pans, or something crazy like that, that probably had a bit to do with their inability to staff themselves. So for every large we ordered, though they didn't change the bill, they gave us two mediums.

Eight medium Pizza Hut pizzas. Everyone got leftovers. I actually got two full Hawaiian pizzas. This made up for our waitress' complete lack of ability. We left happy. I wonder if that's one of their backup plans, for extremely disgruntled regulars.