The following is an actual conversation between myself and my daughter while driving around Stamford.
Me: Is it just me, or…
Daughter: It’s just you.
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Me: (Sighing) Is it just me or do the people in Stamford seem to eat a lot of pizza? I don’t remember seeing so many cars driving around with pizza hats in Westchester.
Daughter: I think people in Westchester probably eat just as much pizza, but the delivery cars don’t have the hats. The pizza is incognito.
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Me: Ah.
Daughter: What holds the hats on anyway?
Me: I always assumed they’re magnetic. Can’t use them on convertibles.
Daughter: I’m hungry.
You know what a pizza hat is, right? Those pyramidal protuberances proudly proclaiming their propinquity to a pizza parlor while putt-putting to people who have procured pepperoni pies. (Thus ends this week’s alliteration exercise; now pardon me while I wipe the spit off my computer monitor.)
It may be true that pizza delivery cars in Westchester don’t wear headgear, but the fact remains that, at any given time, one out of every four vehicles on the roads in Stamford is delivering pizza.* It almost doesn’t even matter what the given time is; I’ve seen them in the morning, I’ve seen them after midnight.
The cars themselves are besides the point; it’s all about the hat. Sometimes it’s worn at a jaunty angle. Other times it may display ‘tude by being far forward. And I’ve seen some worn well back toward the rear window in a sort of "relax-it’s-coming-you-didn’t-really-want-it-hot-did-you" laid back way.
Often I wonder just how many accidents in Stamford are caused by pizza hats flying off the roofs of delivery vehicles. Do you think the American Automobile Association keeps statistics for that? "This holiday weekend, 3.5 million Americans will be impaled by rogue pizza hats smashing through their windshields. Please drive carefully."
Or simply drive in Westchester, with its unmarked pizza delivery cars.
*"Fact" may be too strong a word considering that I made it up.
For more on our adventures as first-time homeowners at age 57, and moving to Stamford, visit http://theupsizers.wordpress.com/
