Seriously America? Is this what it’s come to?
You may have noticed over the holidays that Domino’s Pizza launched a new campaign in which they provide what they call “carry-out insurance.” Unlike traditional insurance, you don’t actually pay a premium of any kind, so it’s more of a “replacement guarantee,” if you want to be technical. But either way, this is the latest in a long line of signs that the end is nigh for this country; from lights in our sneakers to Labradoodles to women named Emily, the writing has been on the wall for years. Now it’s flashing in the sky in Neon pink.
Carry-out insurance is the latest reason to have empathy for ISIS and their hatred for our way of life.
Apparently, we have an epidemic in America of people picking up pizza from Dominos (something that seems anathema to me in the first place…they are, after all, the inventors of pizza delivery for the love of God) and then the pizza not making it home safely. If that epidemic weren’t the case, why would this “service,” be needed in the first place and why would it be the subject of a multi-million dollar national ad campaign?
The premise is as follows: You walk into Domino’s (for some reason) and carry your pizza out. Somewhere between then and making it home safely to your dining room table, a terrible tragedy befalls your pizza and it becomes inedible if not destroyed. At this point in this tragic tale, prior to Carry-out Insurance, you were, as they say, Shit-Out-Of-Luck. Domino’s responsibility for the safety and well-being of your pizza ended when you left their establishment. I imagine the phone call prior to Carry-Out Insurance would have gone as follows:
PIZZA PERSON: Hello, Domino’s, will this be carry-out or delivery?
GRIEVING CUSTOMER: Well, neither actually, I just picked up my pizza about 20 minutes ago
PIZZA PERSON: And is there a problem with your order?
GRIEVING CUSTOMER: Not exactly, it just didn’t make it home safely. I dropped it while I was fumbling for my keys and the pizza fell and the box opened and the pizza fell into the giant pile of dog shit I keep by my front door.
PIZZA PERSON: well I’m sorry to hear that, would you like to order another pizza?
GRIEVING CUSTOMER: Well not if I have to pay for it
PIZZA PERSON: Well, dumb-shit, maybe you should have just had us deliver it to you in the first place so none of this would have happened. CLICK.
But now, thanks to modern American ingenuity, when your sub-par pizza meets an untimely demise, you simply must go back to the same Domino’s location, with destroyed pizza in hand, within 2 hours of having originally picked it up, and they will replace the pizza free of charge. How incredibly easy and enticing! If I were never to have before considered ordering a pizza from Domino’s (and I haven’t since I was about 16 years old) I am certainly sold on the idea now!
- I am truly flummoxed and befuddled at the need for this service and its actual benefit to almost anyone other than the clumsiest, most petty people alive. The only way to explain all of this are the following apparent truths:
- A large number of people are not getting their pizzas home safely
- A similarly large number of people are so angry at their pizza not making it home safely, that they then call the pizza place to complain about something that is not the pizza place’s fault at all.
- A similarly large number of people feel as though when a product they purchased is ruined by no fault of the product provider, it is the product provider’s responsibility to make things right.
- A similarly large number of people are, apparently, so petty and pathetic that after driving to a place that offers delivery in the first place, they will get back in their car, drive back to the same place, wait 20 minutes for the new pie to be made and then drive back home all for an $8 pizza.
What other possible conclusions are there? And most disturbingly, Domino’s is not a small company. They clearly did tons of market research to test this idea and were obviously told it was, in fact, a service that would make people do business with them.
And you wonder why the world hates us?
It’s not Trump, Hollywood, abortion, immigration, guns, the death penalty, Carrot Top, our military, the media, our wealth, Lena Dunham, 72 different flavors of Oreos, the invention of Facebook, Starbucks, our contributions to Climate Change, the wars in the Middle East, or even Pineapple Pizza. The world hates us because of us…because we need carry-out pizza insurance.
And by the way…what’s the limit on this “insurance?” If I carry-out pizza #1 and drop it in dog shit, return and get my replacement, what happens if pizza #2 then gets smashed by my enormously fat friend sitting on it? Do I get pizza #3? Does this go on all night? And what happens if the pizza isn’t destroyed, but is, in fact, carried away by a large falcon and I catch the theft on video? Is the video proof enough to insure me my replacement? What if some jack-off with a droid takes my pizza away from me? What if I get in a horrible car accident, my car is totaled, I am paralyzed and I can’t make it Domino’s within 2 hours? Are they seriously not going to give a man in a wheelchair a replacement pizza 4 weeks later when I get out of the ICU?
Fuck you America.
