When the delivery food you ordered somehow arrives really early

Grumbling tums make those late snacks come every time.

Scope this scene:

It’s late at night, clock clicking past two in the morning, and you and your friends are lying on a torn, potato-chipcrumb-covered couch, sporting big grins, slack jaws, droopy eyes, and sweaty T-shirts. You’re half awake but fully hungry, half cooked but not fully done, half exhausted but fully up for ordering some hot and steamy late night food.

Someone suggests it and everybody wants it. And then it’s all over.

First you start picturing burning hot mozzarella sliding around on slippery tomato sauce. You think of wet and glistening pepperoni, the corners black and crispy, little grease puddles lying in the folds. Then you start dreaming of steamy Styrofoam with sticky sweet-and-sour chicken. Then you’re salivating over thought bubbles of greasy samosas and pillowy naans in paper bags. And you know, you just know, that late night food will taste delicious. Because how can it not?

See, we all know this ain’t your 6 p.m. Dinner Order, where opinions are collected, phone numbers are looked up, and the table is set for dinner, complete with triangle-folded paper towels and a giant 2-liter bottle of Coke centerpiece.

No, this is the Late Night Scarf-It-And-Sleep. This is the one your doctor warned you about. This is the one that took out Grandpa. Yeah, this is the big ball of greasy grub that sponges up everything else in your belly. It’s the only cure for rapid outbreaks of the Midnight Munchies, that empty, raw, growling feeling your gut gives you when it’s tired and confused and suddenly wants breakfast.

The Scarf-It-And-Sleep generally consists of somebody dialing whatever number is in their cell phone, ordering a plain cheese or pepperoni pizza or random Mixed-Plate Combo #6 without asking anybody else, and then just throwing it on their credit card because they can’t be bothered to collect five bucks from everybody sitting around playing video games.

The only issue with the Scarf-It-And-Sleep is that even in the middle of the night you get told what you always get told: “That’ll be forty-five minutes,” they say. And brother, you know and I know that you don’t want to be waiting for that food, that long, that late. Somebody might crack and drink a bottle of salad dressing or eat a bar of butter, man. It’s a tense scene.

And that’s why it’s great when, once in a while, you get that surprise really, really early delivery. When twelve minutes after you place your order, the doorbell rings and whambam, thank you gram, it’s here, it’s hot, and it’s time to toss that greasy square of hot cardboard on the floor or big stapled paper bag on the counter and rip right into it like a pack of lions around a dead zebra.

So this one goes out to the delivery people who surprise us with an early doorbell once in a while. Thanks for filling our bellies with your greasy goodness just in time for bed.

AWESOME!