The Pizza Dilemma

     Vinnie drove a black Cadillac which was meant to inspire fear in the hearts of whoever saw its bright headlamps rolling down the street. It was one of the older models with doors that opened from the middle, and a hood ornament that looked as though it were capable of causing fatal impalement. The interior was done in a dark leather specifically chosen to hide stains. Usually if there was going to be a “problem” Vinnie would put a towel down, but occasionally there were unplanned incidents. All in all, it was a fearsome machine, with a roar that could strike fear into even the most stoic.

     James, while not traditionally stoic was what one would call self-absorbed. When he heard the rumbling of the Cadillac in the distance he had but one thought: I could really use a slice right about now. Down the road was a wonderful pizza joint that would serve up greasy triangles the size of James’s head for less than five dollars. This was a bargain, and since James always seemed to be low on cash, it was a staple. However, cheap as the pizza may have been, it did not imbue the consumer with the power to stop bullets, or momentarily turn invisible, and as such was of no practical use in the situation at hand. James knew this, but still felt that the slice of pizza was the moment’s highest priority.

     From the windowsill overlooking the lazy street that the black Cadillac would soon wind up, a cat stared at James incredulously. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m really hungry,” James said to the cat, motioning to his stomach as if to further the point. In fact, James wasn’t hungry at all, but something about going out and spending money he didn’t have on something he didn’t need felt like an adequate solution to the problems at hand.

     The cat merely responded with a blank stare. It wasn’t that she was unintelligent; it was more that she was fed up with James’s excuses and didn’t want to be strung up by a debt collector. In truth James’s cat might have possessed more innate intelligence than he did. The same can’t be said of all cats, but this particular cat had developed a worldly quality that made here acutely aware of the goings on beyond James’s small one-bedroom apartment, and as such, wiser than her years. It was for this reason that late at night she would sit up calling at the moon, lamenting the state of U.S. politics, and wishing for a leader who would put higher value on fish-based products. James interpreted these actions as an assault on his sleep patterns, and as such often stifled her intellectual wails with high velocity throw pillows.

     However, this story is not about James’s cat; it is about James. While a story about a super-intelligent feline may seem more interesting than that of an indebted twenty-something; I can assure you it is not. “Look, I’m going out to get some pizza and that’s that,” said James, looking frantically for his winter boots. It wasn’t that he was in a hurry to avoid Vinnie’s machine of death, rather that he wanted to get to the pizza shop before the 5:30 rush, when he would have to interact with large groups of people. James wasn’t anti-social, but he was averse to large crowds of people and pointless small talk.

     James found his boots beneath the remnants of a tower composed of takeout boxes, and strapped them to his feet. The cat meowed from the windowsill, imploring him against the hasty action that would leave her alone with an aggravated and violent man, but James once again misinterpreted it as simple annoyance. “Well maybe if you paid rent we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he said, cursing his feline compatriot for her lack of apposable thumbs.

     When he opened the door, a bitter wind blasted him in the face, making him regret for an instant his decision to step out in the first place. For motivation he imagined the red and white checkered tables that awaited him just a half mile down the road and slammed the door behind him. He then ran down the winding concrete staircase that would collapse in six months and to a trail that led from his apartment building to the local shops. It was about one minute after this that Vinnie shattered James’s door into splinters and found nothing other than a pile of bills and an erudite tabby.