Vignettes #20

Margarete and Walter were a couple who were close friends. We organized our cinema nights together, founded Lyssa humana and later co-founded our own cinema. At the time of this story we were not friends yet, in fact, this was the evening we did become friends.

Both of them had been regulars at my screenings at the film club, and we often chatted afterwards. I knew they lived just around the corner from where I lived, so one evening I decided to drop by. Margarete was alone, but insisted that I stay and was a good host. Walter arrived about an hour later and was happy to see me as guest.

Since we all hadn't had supper yet, Walter asked me whether I liked hot spicy food. I said yes, and he suggested to get Mexican pizzas from a delivery service he knew. I agreed, but Margarete told me not to. She said I'm being tricked, those pizzas were unbearably hot, nobody could eat them. She nearly pledged. I thought I'd really want to try, and Walter was just too eager to let me have one.

So we ordered 2 Mexican pizzas, Margarete had something else, of course. The food arrived, and the pizza was a kind I had never seen before. One half had salad on it, the other half corn with a lot of black pepper on it. So I was a good sport and started off with my pizza. At first I didn't notice anything, but then it got hotter and hotter, it was really an experience, but I've had hot before. I assumed it was the pepper which was only roughly ground, I didn't find any other spices that could have caused the effect. I didn't let anyone notice that it was hot for me and ate it all up.

Then I looked over to Walter who was having his pizza sitting on the sofa. I hadn't watched him till then. There he sat, half of the pizza still on his plate, his face as red as a tomato, sweat running like water down his whole head and his shirt buttoned open to the waist.

He said 'you win' and that he'll never ever order that pizza again.

I ate the rest of his pizza, too, and we've been close friends ever since.