"Thank you for calling Pizza Pizza, how may I help you?"
Hermes twisted the phone cord about his fingers "I'd like to place an order for delivery please. It's a big order." A few clicks of a keyboard were heard at the other end of the line.
"That's fine, sir, would you like to hear our specials or do you know what you'd like to order?" The woman sounded cheery, probably because it was guaranteed to be a big order.
"No, thanks, I've got it."
"Pick-up or delivery?"
"Delivery"
"Can I have your address including the postal code and phone number starting with the area code please?" Hermes gave the information to her and listened once again to the clicking at the other end of the phone. He released the phone cord from his fingers and began inspecting his nails, cleaning the dirt out from under them and vaguely thinking that he'd been talking with Aphrodite too much. "OK! Thank you sir, what would you like to order?"
Hermes took a deep breath. "I need fifteen pounds of potato wedges, 10 pounds of chicken wings, breaded with honey garlic dipping sauce, three large orders of coleslaw and three of macaroni salad, six six packs of soda, one pack cream soda, one pack orange, two packs of coke and two packs of root beer, two garden salads with vinaigrette dressing, I can't believe they ordered salad, an order of fries, who orders fries from Pizza Pizza? Anyways an order of pasta, pasta? Who wanted pasta? Oh, Apollo, right, he's more Italian than the Italian. And two large party pizza's."
There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment and then the clicking started up again, but more furiously. Hermes couldn't remember hearing it while he was talking and hoped she would be able to get the whole order right, his reputation was at stake.
"Um…What would you like on your pizza's, sir?"
Hermes thought for a second. He didn't know, either everyone had forgotten to tell him what they wanted or he had forgotten to ask. "Can you hold on a minute?" He covered the mouthpiece, not waiting for the answer and shouted.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT ON THE PIZZA'S?" The replies were instantaneous.
"PEPPERONI"
"HAM"
"RED ONIONS"
"ANCHOVIES"
"EW, ANCHOVIES?"
"What? They're good!"
"They're DISGUSTING!"
"ARE NOT!"
"ARE TOO!"
"ENOUGH! NO MORE ARGUEING! HERMES, MAKE SURE THERE ARE MUSHROOMS ON THE PIZZA!
"IS THERE ANYTHING LOW-FAT? I'M WATCHING MY FIGURE"
"GROUNDBEEF"
Hermes started to tune them out until the din of voices stopped and then removed his hand from the phone. "Everything but anchovies. And make sure there's mushrooms. Do you have tofu?"
More clicking. "Ummm, yes sir, we do, would you like it in the sauce or on the pizza?"
"On the pizza please"
"Is there anything else?"
"OH! Yeah, about 20 packs of those little two-bite brownies!" More clicking.
"Your order comes to-"
"Don't worry about it, I'm using a credit card"
"Alright, just let me read your order back to you and I'll take down the information."
"You got it, honey"
"Ok, you want fifteen pounds of potato wedges, 10 pounds of chicken wings with honey garlic dipping sauce, three large orders of coleslaw and three of macaroni salad, six six packs of soda, two packs cream soda, two packs orange, two packs of coke and two packs of root beer, two garden salads with vinaigrette dressing, an order of fries, an order of pasta, and two large party pizza's with everything on them, mushrooms and tofu chunks."
"only one pack of cream soda and one pack of orange soda, for a total of six packs when you include the two packs of root beer and two packs of coke."
"Oh, yes, sorry about that sir."
"No problem, did you get the breaded wings?"
"I'll write down breaded now"
"great! And the brownies?"
"Oh, yes, I almost forgot"
"No problem, I love those things, they're so good"
"I agree, sir, you can never have too many. 20 packs, right?"
"Yup! Man, those tofu chunks sound disgusting"
"They are. Ok, if that's it, then I'll take down the credit card information" The woman sounded exhausted and Hermes pitied her, so he gave her the information quickly. "Due to the…magnitude of your order, I can't guarantee a delivery time, but it should arrive in 45 minutes."
"That's perfect, thanks!"
"You're welcome, sir have a nice day-"
"Oh! Wait! I have a question for you"
"Sir?"
"How do you input all the information? I mean, I can hear clicking, do you type it all?"
"Oh, uh, no sir, it's all in drop-down menus. The only thing I have to type is your information, and that's in sectioned off little boxes too."
"Oh, cool! I wonder if I could get a program like that…"
One hour later the order arrived and it took the delivery boy several trips to and from the car to bring the entire order, Hermes gave him a nice tip. Sitting back in his chair in his office, he happily plucked off the tofu from his pizza and sipped his drink, one of the bags of brownies on the table next to his propped up foot and the rest of his plate of pizza. He had made up his plate, snuck the brownies and two cans of soda and then announced that the pizza had arrived and left to his room.
From there, munching his pizza, he could hear the reaction and complaints of the others.
"Where's the anchovies?"
"I told you, those are gross! No wonder Hermes didn't order them!"
"Alright! Ham!"
"The only thing low fat on these pizza's is the tofu! I can't eat this!"
"At least he got your salad"
"My pasta is fine"
"Why did you order pasta anyways? Isn't Pizza Italian enough?"
"I like pasta!"
"Who ordered green peppers?"
"Why is there tofu on the pizza?"
"It's a new topping for the vegetarian's"
"No, it's disgusting!"
"You think everything is disgusting!"
"Most things ARE"
Hermes knew he'd hear about it, but he didn't really care. What was he supposed to do when no one told him what they wanted? He couldn't read minds like Persephone, who seemed to be the only pleased person to walk by his door, giving him a smile a thumbs-up as she passed. He gave her a grin around his mouthful of pizza, shoving the chunks into his cheeks. When it came to pizza, they were nearly on the same page, with Persephone content to eat almost whatever was on it (thought she plucked off the tofu too) and Hermes was fanatic about it, able to eat whole pizza's by himself and leaving others wondering where in the world he put it. He told them his left leg.
Hermes settled back into his food and made a face when he ate a chunk of tofu.
True, God's didn't really need to eat, but humans don't really need to swim, do they? They enjoy a good meal just as much as anyone else.
And I dare you to tell them otherwise.