"The Olives," or, "Differences in Male-Female Communication Styles"

This is actually an event that happened a little over a year ago but it has lived in infamy ever since (OK, maybe that was poor taste given it is December 7th and the 65th anniversary of Pearl Harbor...but I digress.)

One night, DH, our good friend E (I'll call her Estelle for the purposes of this blog), and I decided to go out for pizza at a local pizza place that we hadn't gone to lately. DH had gone there for lunch one day and said the pizza was darn good so we might as well go there for a change instead of our favorite Star Tavern.

This is not a fancy place. It has one of those white boards that you can put letters up one at a time on, and change the postings from time to time. It has formica tables and you order at the counter and sit down and wait till they bring your order.

So, DH, Estelle and I stared up at the board that shows the varieties of pizza and sub sandwiches they offer. Estelle and I latched on to the second entry from the top which said: "Veggie Pizza" and on the next line, "mushrooms onions peppers broccoli."

Estelle and I always make a vague effort to feel healthy when we eat fattening greasy food. So we decided "Veggie Pizza" sounded like a good compromise. We said we'd have that.

DH looked dubious and said "Why don't we just order the broccoli pizza? I had that the other day for lunch and it was really good." Estelle and I were adamant. "Oh no," we said. "We want ALL the veggies."

So, DH obediently ordered said pizza with no further comment. We all sat down and were chatting amiably for about 15 minutes, and then the waitress brought over the pizza. A huge pizza. Covered, literally crawling with, BLACK OLIVES.

Let me explain. Estelle and I do not like olives on our pizza. Estelle HATES olives in every way, shape or form. I hate them on anything like pizza or salad, although plain, really really good olives by themselves, I'll eat.

Estelle and I looked at this pizza with horrified eyes and said, in unison - couldn't have been more perfectly timed if we'd rehearsed it - "WE DIDN'T ORDER THAT!"

As the waitress looked perplexed, DH said "Oh, yes, you did." We did not believe this. We had to get up and go look at the board again. Sure enough, after the line that said "mushrooms onions peppers broccoli," there was another line. With a space between it and that line. In the middle. By itself. It said "olives."

We had ordered a veggie pizza COVERED in black olives. And they weren't even the kind of black olives I was talking about (those "really good" black olives that are OK to eat plain). They were those yucky canned type black olives.

Estelle and I had no other choice. We had ordered the pizza with the olives. We had to eat the pizza with the olives.

So we sat there picking off olives until we were able to stomach the remaining pizza and got through it without starving.

Of course DH did not escape without our wrath. We asked him over and over, "WHY didn't you TELL us it had olives on it? You KNOW we hate olives!"

DH's response was that he figured we knew what we were doing, it was obvious there were olives on the pizza, and that he just figured we'd come to our senses, changed our minds and LIKED olives now.

We have not let him live this down since, and every once in awhile the subject comes up again and we have to discuss it all over again. If a new person is in our midst and has not heard The Story of the Olives, we have to repeat it to him or her and ask whose side they are on. It has become a legend.

So, whose side are YOU on?