The $600 Decision That Became the Reason We Couldn't Order Pizza

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that everyone loves pizza. Seriously, what other food can bridge the gap between a fancy gourmet pie and the glorious simplicity of a cheap hot n ready from Little Caesars? (I’ll admit, the older I get, the cheaper my taste becomes and sometimes the pizza at QT or Little Caesars hits the spot!) But when I was a kid, certain pizza joints were iconic. Back in the day, Pizza Hut was the absolute holy grail of pizza places. We also loved Shakey’s Pizza, Pizza Inn and Godfathers, but once we moved to Florida, our choices shrunk to things like frozen pizza, Crusty’s and good ol' Pizza Hut.

What I’m about to tell you is one of those classic family stories—the kind that makes you laugh and cringe all at once—and now that most of my family is gone, it’s somehow been forgotten by the remaining members except for my sister and me. It all centers on my maternal grandparents, specifically my grandfather, Pawpaw (technically my mom’s stepfather, but he was the only grandfather I ever really knew).

My grandparents, who lived across Texas, Missouri and Kansas over the years, were the definition of super frugal people. And Pawpaw was the captain of that frugal ship. Because we saw them so rarely, mainly during a few childhood trips out there or when they visited us in Florida (once when I was small and again around my sister’s wedding when I was in 7th or 8th grade), those visits were unforgettable.

Any suggestion of going out to eat made my grandmother genuinely shudder. She’d immediately shut down the idea, claiming Pawpaw wouldn’t like it and we would, naturally, be having dinner at home. Dinner usually involved something pulled from their garden, paired with meatloaf, spaghetti or whatever cut of meat they managed to snag on sale, either baked or fried. Suggestions for tacos, Chinese food, Whataburger or even Kentucky Fried Chicken were swatted away instantly, but nothing caused a softer, yet firmer, rejection than the word “pizza”.

And this is where the real story begins.

The year was sometime in the 1950s. Pawpaw, fresh out of the Air Force, was approached by two friends. These guys were brothers—Frank and Dan. They needed some startup capital and asked Pawpaw to invest in their new business idea: a restaurant that served pizza.

“What else?” Pawpaw asked.

“Just pizza,” they replied.

My grandpa’s response was a masterpiece of stubborn, misguided certainty. He argued that people wouldn't waste their money eating out when they could just eat cheaper at home. According to the way my mom—and later my aunt—told the tale, Pawpaw actually made fun of their idea. “Your Pawpaw, made fun of their idea and said no one will come to a restaurant that only serves one type of food and they should just open a diner or an ice cream shop somewhere if they want to waste their money on something,” my aunt confirmed.

The investment they needed wasn’t some astronomical sum by today’s standards, but in that era, $600 was around today’s $6,000, maybe a touch more. Pawpaw refused.

Instead of Pawpaw’s money, Frank and Dan convinced their own mother to loan them the funds. And thus, a successful business was born in Wichita. By the time I came along, that business was national and by the 1980s, practically every single town in the US had at least one: Pizza Hut.

Yes, my friends, my grandfather not only knew the original owners of the chain that became synonymous with family nights out, he insulted the very idea. And thus the bitterness connected with his stubbornness consumed him for the rest of his life.

I experienced that bitterness firsthand. I remember only two times in my life getting spanked by my grandfather. Once was for roughhousing with my cousin and making him cry. The second, far more memorable time, was when I adamantly proclaimed I hated my Grandma’s cooking and proclaimed that I wanted to go to Pizza Hut “like we did back home”. My sister and I instantly learned that Pizza Hut was strictly forbidden territory when the grandparents were around. It was a stark contrast to my other grandma, my dad’s mom would order Dominos to be delivered to her house during some of the weekends we would visit her during my middle school years.

But the absolute funniest part of this whole generational saga unfolded toward the end of Grandma’s life. One night, Pawpaw actually gave Grandma a break from cooking and took her, my mom, my sister and my nephew out to eat. Where did they go? Kentucky Fried Chicken. And what did they order? “The special,” which, bless Texas’s heart, was a country fried steak dinner. Little by little during that visit to KFC, he was the only one enjoying the special while the others changed their order to original recipe chicken. I assume, of course, that no one dared mention the simple, cruel fact that KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut were all owned by the exact same massive company. Knowing my grandparents, I can only conclude that the motto “Ignorance is bliss” was definitely at play.

It’s a wild story to look back on—a $600 decision that changed not only my family’s potential financial history but cemented a lifelong obsession with regret fueled by pizza.

I’d love to hear if your family has a similar legendary mistake! Drop a comment below and share your own "what if" moment or family lore. If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane and found a bit of perspective (or just a laugh) in my Pawpaw's massive business blunder, feel free to show some love and help keep these stories—and cheap pizza—coming. Every little bit helps me bring more content like this to life!

The Noro Hammer Drop: No No Norovirus

 

I’ve had some absolute doozies when it comes to being sick over the years. I’m talking about chronic issues that led to losing most of the hearing in one ear from infections that went as far back as when I was a kid. If you’ve ever seen me sing live in the past 15 years and wondered why I stick to ballads and slower tunes, it's because I can’t hear myself very well, so any fast tunes I do are from pure muscle memory and ballads (or as someone once put it, boring songs) I can manage with a careful ear. I still battle recurring middle ear infections that require a PE tube insertion every few years after the last falls out. After battling through COVID five times, I honestly thought I knew what "the worst illness" felt like, though I’ve heard Shingles is pretty awful and the first round of the vaccine was horrible. Before the COVID, I might have said Chicken Pox might have been the worst illness I’d ever had but on both accounts, was I wrong.

My newest personal record for misery started innocently enough last Sunday. I was actually doing an at-home sleep study my doctor arranged when I was abruptly woken up at 4:36 AM by the sound of Terry getting violently ill then coming in and announcing what was going on. The sleep study? Abruptly over. We initially suspected food poisoning, maybe from the McDonald's I’d ordered via Grubhub, though I’m usually the first one to get hit by bad food. Then we thought about the nachos we had on Saturday at work, I tossed half of mine, but Terry finished his entire portion.

Tuesday rolled around and I was trying to manage things from work and was doing fairly well and on my break, I ordered some easy-prep groceries for Terry and a case of Sprite, the official soda of the BRAT diet. When I got home, he was still not feeling well and had to make sure he was able to get to the restroom quickly. When I'm sick, I hate being bothered, especially if someone is eating in front of me and I try to give someone else the same courtesy. So, I stayed in the kitchen and ate while he camped out in the living room. I needed to get up early, but I figured I’d go to bed around 7 PM.

Around 1 AM, Terry finally came to bed, still not great, but then a familiar bad feeling started bubbling up in my own tummy. My legs started feeling weird and I knew I was about to join the illness party. I scrambled to the living room, downed a Zofran, took a few sips of Sprite and popped a piece of peppermint candy in my mouth, peppermint usually does the trick for me.

I laid back down...and within minutes, I was making a frantic sprint to the restroom. This wasn't just for unnatural-feeling bowel movements; this was because nausea hit me like a ton of bricks. I jumped into the shower, hoping the cold water would help, but it was too cold. I cranked it up—too hot. I settled somewhere in the middle, still not feeling right. I grabbed the spray nozzle because I honestly thought I was going to poop myself in the shower.

Nope. Instead, the dry heaves started. And not just three or four times. On the fifth heave, it seemed like everything I’d eaten over the past few days decided to exit one way, while the really recent stuff went the other. Once it starts for me, it doesn't stop until the sights and smells are gone, so the spray nozzle worked overtime getting everything off of me, off the sides and floor of the tub and down the drain. A quick squeeze of toothpaste in my mouth calmed me enough to wash up quickly with some shampoo and a bar of Dial, only to hit the toilet one more time. I am so glad I bought a bidet for my toilet because it has been an incredible tool throughout this time.

Terry came to the door to see if I was OK, obviously I wasn’t and I let him know I was definitely in the same boat as him. I requested ice chips, more Sprite and I grabbed a wet cloth before attempting to go back to bed. Sleep never really happened. I messaged my manager that I wouldn’t be in and I had a video visit with a Kaiser Permanente doctor. Listing all of my symptoms, Terry’s symptoms and the rapid onset, the doctor agreed immediately: classic norovirus. She told me to stay hydrated, expect to be out of work for three days and called in a new Zofran prescription, told me to take Pepcid AC to calm the stomach and take nothing like Imodium AD, she said Pepto would be OK in a few days but after everything’s out. Wednesday and Thursday were nothing but Gatorade, Sprite and ice chips.

I still don’t understand how Terry was able to eat on his second day, because I couldn't even think about food. Around 1 AM Thursday night, I started seeing flashes of light—orthostatic lightheadedness. I was weak, dehydrated and then I remembered something else: I hadn’t taken my blood pressure medicine (amlodipine) in a few days. I took it and went back to bed.

The whole ordeal was excruciating, but the worst parts were the body aches and the fact I had to sleep on a towel because I knew it was never just a fart. I wasn't really sleeping; I was weaving in and out of consciousness.

Friday morning, Terry, now functionally better though not 100%, woke up and encouraged me to try and eat something. While he was at work, I managed ½ cup of applesauce and 8 saltine crackers. 

Saturday, I decided I was not going to call out and I actually went to work and managed to get through an entire shift. I wasn’t hungry but before work I had the same amount of applesauce and also crackers. While I was at work, I had a few more crackers and for lunch I had a banana. I was wiped out by the time I got home from work and for dinner, I had some rice and applesauce. Terry thinks I should have been eating more by now but I really don’t feel I can jump into regular food like that because it’s all about "baby steps" for me, mostly because I have an irrational fear of vomiting and pooping myself. I'm taking precautions now, ordering hand sanitizer and wipes specifically effective against Norovirus to keep with me, because the stuff they have at the airport that works for COVID is useless against the Noro. I’m also realizing the airport is a giant petri dish. The contractors who are supposed to clean the restrooms and common areas aren’t exactly the cleanest people, I’ve seen them eating in the public restrooms, while the counters are covered in water and paper towels and stalls look like Noro had made its rounds. For Terry and I, hopefully, this is the last of it.

I’m so grateful to be on the upswing now, even if I’m just enjoying a banana like it's the greatest meal on Earth. I actually have a pork loin in the crock pot with some amazing spices, herbs, onion and garlic. Once it's done, I’m going to shred it up and add some BBQ sauce, in hopes I can handle some BBQ tonight. I know it’s not a glamorous story but thanks for reading! If you've been through this, drop your best recovery tips below—we can all use the help!