Regardless of your feelings about Domino's, the fact that you can order it online without having to talk to a human being is fantastic.

Type a little on your computer and magically a pizza shows up at your door. It's the closest thing we have to Star Trek's food replicator. Only it takes about 25 minutes to work. And the food delivery unit at my Domino's has a bad mustache.

But I also love the amount of control they give you. Beyond choosing your crust, each topping comes with your choice of "light," "normal," or "heavy." Just like tampons. (Am I right, ladies?)

But what I've become obsessed with is that when you only want a particular topping on half of your pizza, they make you specify WHICH HALF. LEFT or RIGHT.

I had ordered from them a few times but never paid attention to see if they got the halves correct. I was curious to see if it really would arrive the way I ordered it.

Last night I performed a test.

I placed my order, requesting PEPPERONI on the LEFT and MUSHROOMS on the RIGHT.

They also offer a "NONE" option on all toppings. It's even available on the "CHEESE" and "SAUCE" rows -- so just to be a dick, I also ordered a 6-inch individual "NONE" pizza with BEEF (on the left).

25 minutes later there was a dude at my door with food. (Someday that dude will be a robot with a bad mustache and my life will be perfect.)

It is flat-out sad how excited I was to open the boxes.

Did the Domino's food synthesizer honor the options I was forced to choose?

NO.

The dividing line was exactly 90 degrees up the middle, but mushrooms were on the left!

I realize it's all arbitrary and the options are presented for clarity, but if they're going to force me to make the choice, then they could at least give me what I wanted and put it in the box correctly.

And as far as the "NONE Pizza with Left Beef"...





It was close, but the whole pizza was so small and light it must have shifted during delivery. And the little beef pellets didn't have any sauce or cheese to hang on to, so a few lost their footing from the left half.

After we ate most of it I saw on the box that my satisfaction was "guaranteed," and that if I wasn't completely satisfied -- they would "make it right" or refund my money.

Unfortunately it was too late for me to call and request that someone come back to my house to rotate the pizzas and re-position my beef pellets.

I may be writing a letter to the president of Domino's this weekend.

Posted by Steven | Archive