ITALIAN FOOD

Our waitress was an an aging Las Vegas showgirl, now faded and sagging but still showing moxie. She took a break from downing highballs and playing canasta to take our order.

We wanted a large antipasto salad and a small Sicilian deep dish pizza. We even said so.

"Oh, that salad's too much for three of you. You should get the small. Really."

"Oh," we said and glanced at each other. "Well.."

"Small salad it is, then," she said, and wrote it down.

"Okay, well, and then a small Sicilian deep dish deluxe," we said.

"Well, now is that going to be enough pizza?" she asked, eyeing us and shaking her head in the negative.

"Yeah, we figured it's six pieces so we'd each get two slices, and with a big salad..."

"Oh, well it's not an OVERLY big salad," she said, referring to the salad that SHE had ordered for us. "It's enough for three."

"Well, we thought we'd get an appetizer or two, also."

"Large pizza it is!" she said, jotting it down with a swoop. "What kind of appetizers did you want?"

We told her. Two of us also ordered diet cokes.

"Did you want to order a pitcher of Diet then?" she asked.

"Don't they give free refills here?" Brandon whispered to me. I shrugged, which Lola the Waitress took as assent.

"Pitcher of Diet coming up!" she barked.

When our food arrived, the salad proved to be delicious, but sparse, and we found ourselves fingering lettuce shards out of the empty bowl. The appetizers, the ordering of which she hadn't interfered with, were perfect. We ate a total of four slices of pizza It was salty, gooey, and huge. It was not, however, either Sicilian or deep dish.

"Guess she decided we should get the thin crust," I said, sipping some of the seven dollar pitcher of Diet Coke.