January 8th - Niki

One of the best parts about moving to a new place is being able to discover all the local gems. The places that the locals go to, places that help make a new city your new home.  When I first moved to Greensboro, I was very excited to find places that would become haunts for me.

The Corner Slice on Elm and Fisher is one of those places.  It's a little pizza place that is aptly named because it is right around the corner from us.  It's the go-to "We are not cooking tonight" place, and it's supplied the pizzas for both Elizabeth and my birthdays for many years.  All of their pizzas are named after streets in the neighborhood.  Our favorite is the Park (their version of a supreme pizza), but I've tried them all and there's not a bum pie in the place.

Whenever I call an order in, I usually get one of two people answering the phone.  Yesterday, I stopped by for a beer and to interview one of them. 

Niki

Niki has been a server at Corner Slice for four years.  She's been there whenever we dine in, and she's there whenever I come to pick up a carry out order.  She always smiles when I come in, and she remembers my name and often asks about Elliot (Corner Slice was the first restaurant he went to when I was sent on a pizza run shortly after he was born).  Whenever I get to the end of an order over the phone, she'll ask who it's for.  When I say, "It's for Lars," I usually get a "Heyyy Lars!"  I'm a regular at a pizza joint, what can I say?

Niki was busy behind the bar and waiting tables yesterday, so I didn't get to have as in-depth a conversation as I would have liked. When I first asked if I could interview her, Niki seemed hesitant. "What kind of questions do you want to ask?" she asked, and I was worried that not only was I not going to get an interview, I was probably going to have to find a new pizza place.

Luckily, after I explained what I was doing and what the blog was all about, she warmed up to it. "That's a really cool idea," she said, "people are always on their phones when they're here and they don't talk to one another anymore.  That's a cool way to talk to someone."  So, for having the request sprung on her, she was very helpful and funny which I definitely appreciate!

Lars: First and foremost, what's your favorite pizza that they make here?

Niki: I love the Elm (basically a Big Mac on a pizza, with 1,000 Island Dressing sauce, hamburger, diced bacon, lettuce, tomato, red onion, cheddar cheese, and happiness...I really like that pizza too!)

What's your favorite joke?

Niki: I don't really have one, I'm terrible at remembering jokes.  My dog makes me laugh more than anything though.  He's a pitbull mix named Mudflap.  (Mudflap can be seen in the picture above, and I can attest that he is, indeed, hilarious)

So she could have a joke to remember, I told her the bike joke from Saturday (..."too tired"...) and she groaned at the dad joke.

What's the meal that reminds you most of home?

Niki; Chicken pot pie, my mom makes it whenever I go back.  It's not like the pot pie you might be used to, more like chicken and dumplings down here.  It's Pennslyvania Dutch, just reminds me of home.

If you could bring back one musician, who would it be?

Niki: Pigpen from the Grateful Dead, I'm a big Deadhead.

Will the world be better or worse in 20 years?

Niki: Right now, I think it's going to be worse.  I have a bit of a bleak outlook on things right now and the way they are going.  But I hope that it will get better, and I have faith that it will eventually get better.  It'll take awhile though. I really want to say it will get better!

Niki had to move on to other customers that weren't bothering her for their annual blogs.  But even though it was a short conversation, it showed that it doesn't take much to make a connection.  It's very easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole of our own lives, putting our blinders on to anything that doesn't directly affect us. So much of our lives becomes a transaction: I order a pizza, you get me that pizza, I pick it up, and we're done.

But if we look up every once in awhile, you'll find that there are other people with other ideas and other experiences on the other end of that transaction.  It was nice to finally talk with Niki more than "I'd like to add tomatoes to my Hendrix" or "Sure, I'll have a beer while I wait." There's a person on the other end of that, and I'm glad that I got to get to know her a little better. And now that Elliot has found a love of their pizza too, I have a feeling I'll be continuing to see her for quite some time.