Pizza and the breast stroke? Am I in the right place, or what?

Image from  Shakespeare's Pizza site, see "Breast Stroke."

Sometimes the new kid in town sees things the lifetimers have stopped looking for.

Sometimes the new kid in town recognizes brilliance when she sees it.  (Sometimes she doesn't, but that's not the situation we're talking about at this particular moment.)

Take Shakespeare's Pizza, for example.

It's a Columbia landmark.  Drive by there on a hot summer night (pick a night, any night), and it's recognizable immediately: lots of friendly, hot, hungry people are eating, and talking, and eating....

It's also an expression of the....ummmm, idiosyncracies of its community.

OK, so we had been driving 17 hours (maybe 19) by the time we went searching (on my iPhone) for the best pizza in Columbia.

We were bordering on the delirious, in a very contained and too-exhausted-to-speak sort of way.

Even Baby the Bassett Hound had abandoned all hope of ever being fed again....at least being fed anything but the dry, crunchy, not-very-appetizing kibble we had restricted her to during our cross-country road trip.  (Hey, you have to be really hungry to eat those little pebbles, even if you're a dog...and that was the idea:  no starving the animals, exactly, but no reason to encourage them to eat, either....)

And I inadvertently stumbled upon the Shakespeare's Pizza web site.

It's not exactly Shakespeare, just to give you a head's up on that.  It's more like Homer Simpson.  Or Jon Stewart.  Or me on a cranky day when I've had too much Diet Coke.

Take, for example, its description of Louie's Salad ($4.95 for those of you who worry about such things):

Named in honor of the owner's dog, Louie. He doesn't like the salad (He's a dog. Dogs don't eat salad. They eat rabbits. If they can catch them. Otherwise, it's the same dog chow over and over and over...)

I read that part to Baby; she nodded.

Or its discussion of pizza dough, which somehow meanders around and down and back until it ends up talking about your losing a dead fish under your car seat (clearly the writer has been dying to find a way to work that into the conversation, and there's nothing like pizza dough to provide the opportunity....):

 

And perhaps best of all, the link to a series of photographs -- let me guess, 1952? -- illustrating how to do the breast stroke.

No comment. No explanation.  Just photographs of a very determined and distinctly prone woman splayed on a rubber mat, in various postures reminiscent of frogs. 

Do you people realize that this is on your local pizza site?  Have any of you flopped yourself down on a rubber mat in your living room to give it a try? (That's a rhetorical question; I don't really want to know.)

And perhaps more important, have any of you thanked the guy -- somebody told me his name is Craig? -- who writes this brilliant copy for your pizza-loving entertainment?

I'm new in town.  Let me be the first (well, OK, the first I know about):

Thanks, Craig. 

At the end of a very (very very very) long road trip, in a vehicle that could only be described as a zoo on wheels, we found ourselves laughing hysterically at the site we went to for pizza info -- another confirmation that our trip cross country had led us to the right place.

Comments

[sara]

I love your sense of humor! And yes, Shakespeare's prose is great (with the added benefit that putting it that way sounds so ... learned)

For more local color you should try Trailer Thai at Cooper's Landing (if it's still around). Another wonderfully idiosyncratic place right by the MO river.

[Ashley]

I've lived in Columbia for over 5 years now and not once have I visited the Shakespeare's website. They have funny little writings on the trifolds at each table, but nothing about how to swim the breast stroke. Even worse, I had no idea Craig was the owner of Shakespeare's. Thanks for sharing! I really enjoy your writing style, too!

Ashley

[Kurt Drennen Mirtsching, Director of Everything, Shakespeare's Pizza]

Kurt here, the author of the above referenced balderdash. Glad you liked it! Can I buy you a Fresca? There's more gravity in China, you know. That's why they use chopsticks.

[Barb]

Funny stuff comes from the mouth of Babe and owner.