The minute I turned 16, I wanted to find meaningful, gainful part-time employment.  Instead I found Pizza Hut.   So much for changing the world, huh?  But when other companies turned their noses up at me (screw you Richman Gordman!), Pizza Hut opened me with open arms.   I quickly learned the ropes and faster than you can say “Priazzo”, I was serving pies to the masses. 

The Pizza Hut I worked at was docked next to a busy amusement park in Altoona, Iowa.  From June-August, there was a constant stream of customers coming through the doors.  The restaurant wasn’t just busy, it was constantly running at full tilt.  Tourists who were tired, crabby and suffering from third-degree sunburns would stumble in … drawn likes moths to a flame.   Well, that and the only other choice was a nearby McDonalds. 

I now know where the term “running like a chicken with your head cut off” comes from.  I’d dread the witching hour, approximately 9:45pm, when the theme park would close up shop for the night and displaced rollercoaster riders would hit the Hut looking for their next fix.

The only time the restaurant smelled like pizza was first thing in the morning when we opened shop.  The rest of the day the place smelled like suntan lotion and humanity.  If you’re not familiar with what humanity smells like, it’s a potent combination of sweat, fried food and wet dog.  It also has subtle nasal overtones of a busy truck stop.   The only thing that takes me back to my days at Pizza Hut is visiting a State Fair … it’s the exact same intoxicating blend of aromas.

Long before I learned what “Corporate America” meant, I was thick in the trenches of it.  I’d shamelessly promote whatever new product Pizza Hut was unleashing upon the world.   Apparently, both Des Moines and Wichita (home of the first Hut) were test markets for the rest of the universe.  Tourists would often say, “What’s this?  What’s that?” because of all the wacky, zany new menu items we featured.   We even had special menus that we’d have to switch out every ten minutes when a new product was ready to be unveiled. 

While the rest of my friends were making a whopping $4.25 at their stupid minimum wage jobs, I was making a whopping $12-$15 an hour as a server.  I quickly realized that being a waiter was going to be my calling.  I loved leaving the restaurant every night with nearly one hundred $1 bills in my pocket.  I felt empowered.  I felt rich.  I felt like a stripper.

I worked there for exactly 10 years, to the day.  Why?  Because I got a whopping $300 bonus for my ten year anniversary.   The next day I promptly quit and went and got a job a the oh-so urban and trendy Macaroni Grill where my tips went from $4 to $40 overnight.  But for the record, everything I learned about being a waiter I learned at Pizza Hut. 

To this day, however, I cannot eat Pizza Hut’s pizza.  Just the thought of it makes me woozy.  Looking back, since I have such a sweet tooth, I really should have worked at Krispy Kreme.