While I know a lot of people think I’m some sort of Lego genius for building Hogwarts – today, by the way, marks the one year anniversary of its completion — , the truth is that Hogwarts is quite simply a variety of different shaped bricks put together very conventionally: one atop another. In the world of the AFOLs (”Adult Fans of Lego”), I’m quite the novice in technique and form. I’m not complaining about this, rather, I find myself looking forward to when I begin work on Lego Hogwarts II (no time soon) to try to better fulfill my original vision.

In any case, Saturday morning, before leaving to work a five hour shift at the Franchise, followed by a seven hour shift at the Indy, I found a Brickshelf folder from a user named Sachiko. I’ve seen his stuff on Brickshelf before (I’m particularly fond of his Train Bookend), but his Earth Park took my breath away.

Take a look at the Bricklink folder for a lot of photos. Hard to tell the scale of that construction, isn’t it, and particularly since there’s no, like, human there right? That’s fucking huge — want to know how I know? I’ll tell you: because I’m a loser and I counted the pegs on the “island” of this photo. That “island” measures, from my (admittedly potentially flowed) count, as wide as the base of my Hogwarts — which is, at 64 pegs by 64 pegs, constructed on a base of a sizeable 4,096 Lego Peg area. Now, of course, I’m not a math major, but assuming my count is right, what’s the area of a round base 64 pegs by 64 pegs? Mind you, that “island” is probably only half the area of what is concealed under the removeable top globe — don’t even get me started on how difficult Lego sphere building is — and the entire structure (not to mention the detail work!) probably wouldn’t fit in my dining room.

As much as I would like to say the other, there are - on rare occasions - instances where I am the employee who fucks up. I should like to stress that this does not happen often, because, as well all know, I’m the best pizza delivery guy who ever fucking tossed a pizza onto his front seat and tore down narrow streets, dodging reckless drivers and stray deer to deliver to you a pizza. The best, I say. That is, as they say, my story, and I’m planning on sticking to it.

So, anyway, Friday night at the Indy. Starts off kind of slow, but the day shift was okay, so I figure I’ll most likely wind up doing okay at the end of the night (although it does occur to me I forgot to get gas tonight so I’ll have to leave a few minutes early tomorrow morning and fill up before work). As it turns out, the night becomes very busy, and although by six I’ve only got three runs under my belt (having returned from the afternoon off at 4:40ish), that number quickly rises: I get back and I’ve got a four-shot ending with two at Falls Road, one way up Cuba, and starting at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

I run around bagging everything up. One thing I should mention about the Indy is that we don’t have a computer system, we use handwritten tickets, which means - and I swear I don’t mean this as an excuse - that sometimes certain items on certain tickets can be somewhat difficult to, ah, decipher (particularly if Merv is the one doing the writing). So my quick glance at one of the Falls Road stops correctly register that the pizza has a salad accompanying it … however, my eye reads Greek.

As I will eventually find out, double-checking my next delivery’s ticket before leaving my second stop, the ticket doesn’t say greek. No, clearly it reads that the salad is supposed to be a garden salad. Well, eff’ me, and here’s why: bagging up my runs I made a quick fuss over no greek salad being made, theorize that someone took my greek instead of their garden, and made a greek salad quickly, threw it in a brown paper bag, and raced out the door with it and the rest of my orders.

You might be thinking: “Erm, it be ‘eff you’ because the customer’s going to get all pissy wissy?” Um, no, because fuck the customer.

Of course, it turns out that the customer also gave me my single best tip of the night - $7 (”Because it’s cold out!”) - but also never called back to complain or request a remade salad. Either they were happy enough with the greek salad, or thought it was odd that an Indy Garden salad includes giant chunks of feta cheese. It occurs to me, writing this now, that in my rush in making the salad, I forgot to include the peperoncinni peppers. Alas!