Saturday 28 September 2013

A Pizza from Mario

It had been a long day. We were set up in the outskirts of Melton in a small place called Bacchus Marsh. There, we were being hosted by a scout group that was madly fundraising for a USA tour. Lovely bunch - but still, I get off topic..



It was raining. (Surprise, surprise) So far our trip to Victoria had shown us nothing but wind, rain and a loot of crazy city driving. It must have been quite late as we pulled back into town.  The deserted streets and darkened windows of the restaurants taunted us with their "closed" signs. - Even the supermarket was shut. We were, it seemed to be denied all hope of dinner.



We came around a corner, about to head home to the lot when we spied a little sign, flickering in the rain. "Mario's Pizza" We were saved! 

The three of us piled out of the car and danced through the persistent and heavy raindrops and into the dry comfort of the little pizzeria.

A burley man sat in the corner, curly moustache and a crinkled face. He heaved himself to standing from his window seat and waddled cautiously over to the counter. "What are you doing here?" He asked us.

The three of us looked at each other, not quite sure what to make of this - It soon became apparent that the town didn't see too many outsiders. We explained that we were with the circus and that we wanted some pizzas, at which point he looked at us, almost as confused as we were. He reluctantly took our orders and began to enthusiastically rant about pizza.



He eyed us up and down, Kerry first. 'You look like a funny character' he said, "Is he a funny one?" He asked us, nodding at Kerry.  "Funny circus man, HAHA! Yes, he's a funny one, yes? You need a funny name!" He paused "I think your name should be Gretch! Do ya like that? mm? Gretch, yes"
Kerry thought on this for a moment, politely wondering what to make of this chortling pizza man.

He went back to his pizza for a moment before turning to Luke and I. It was our turn for new names: Ruben and Cynthia.

The boys had a bit of a giggle over these ones, but before Mario could get too excited about our new names, he remembered something important; The pizzas.

-He was so busy re naming us all that he forgot that we had pizzas in the oven and burned them.


He pulled them all out with an emphatic raising of the arms "ooh Mario! He said " The pizza!, *mumble mumble. Oh no, Mario!"
Thankfully dinner was salvageable and soon we left our new, excitable friend to his pizzaria.

We dashed our food back out to the car and waved good bye to Mario - He walked us out and waddled back inside. The flickering light above the door continued to blink, the outline of the pizza man rejoined the dim window, and we returned to the familiarities of our caravans.

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