Sarah Adams, “Be Cool to the Pizza Dude”
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Instructor's Notes
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Sarah Adams
Be Cool to the Pizza Dude
Sarah Adams grew up in Wisconsin. She is a professor of English at Olympic Community College in Seattle, Washington. Adams’s essay “Be Cool to the Pizza Dude” was one of the first listener-submitted pieces read on National Public Radio for the This I Believe series. In this piece, Adams discusses her personal philosophy of life through the lens of pizza delivery.
AS YOU READ: What are Adams’s four principles?
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If I have one operating philosophy about life, it is this: “Be cool to the pizza delivery dude; it’s good luck.” Four principles guide the pizza dude philosophy.
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Principle 1: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in humility and forgiveness. I let him cut me off in traffic, let him safely hit the exit ramp from the left lane, let him forget to use his blinker without extending any of my digits° out the window or toward my horn because there should be one moment in my harried° life when a car may encroach or cut off or pass and I let it go. Sometimes when I have become so certain of my ownership of my lane, daring anyone to challenge me, the pizza dude speeds by in his rusted Chevette. His pizza light atop his car glowing like a beacon reminds me to check myself as I flow through the world. After all, the dude is delivering pizza to young and old, families and singletons, gays and straights, blacks, whites, and browns, rich and poor, and vegetarians and meat lovers alike. As he journeys, I give safe passage, practice restraint, show courtesy, and contain my anger.
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Principle 2: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in empathy. Let’s face it: We’ve all taken jobs just to have a job because some money is better than none. I’ve held an assortment of these jobs and was grateful for the paycheck that meant I didn’t have to share my Cheerios with my cats. In the big pizza wheel of life, sometimes you’re the hot bubbly cheese and sometimes you’re the burnt crust. It’s good to remember the fickle spinning of that wheel.
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Principle 3: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in honor, and it reminds me to honor honest work. Let me tell you something about these dudes: They never took over a company and, as CEO,° artificially inflated the value of the stock and cashed out their own shares, bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy, resulting in twenty thousand people losing their jobs while the CEO builds a home the size of a luxury hotel. Rather, the dudes sleep the sleep of the just.
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Principle 4: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in equality. My measurement as a human being, my worth, is the pride I take in performing my job—any job—and the respect with which I treat others. I am the equal of the world not because of the car I drive, the size of the TV I own, the weight I can bench-press, or the calculus equations I can solve. I am the equal to all I meet because of the kindness in my heart. And it all starts here—with the pizza delivery dude.
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Tip him well, friends and brethren, for that which you bestow freely and willingly will bring you all the happy luck that a grateful universe knows how to return.
Questions to Start You Thinking
Considering Meaning: In your own words, briefly explain the four principles of Adams’s philosophy—and how the “pizza dude” helps reveal each of them.
Identifying Writing Strategies: Why do you think Adams chooses to focus on the “pizza dude,” specifically? How would her essay work if her guidelines were more general? How would you describe her writing voice and style—for example, her use of the term dude?
Reading Critically: Adams claims that her philosophy is “good luck” (paragraph 1). In her conclusion, she says that following her advice “will bring you all the happy luck that a grateful universe knows how to return” (paragraph 6). What assumptions on the writer’s part do these statements reveal? Do you share them?
Expanding Vocabulary: Why do you think Adams uses the word cool in the way she does here? Is it merely synonymous with kind or nice, or does it have other important connotations? What are they? What is the history of the term cool in slang usage?
Making Connections: Referring to David Brooks’s “The Humility Code,” do you think people who are “cool” to the pizza dude would be described as having Adam I or Adam II virtues? Support your answer with evidence from Brooks’s essay.
Journal Prompts
Adams writes that the pizza dude reminds her to show restraint, even when her impulses and instincts would have her do otherwise. Write about a time when you have checked yourself in the way Adams describes. What values does such behavior promote?
The writer makes a distinction between unscrupulous CEOs and those like the pizza dude who do “honest work” (paragraph 4). What does the term honest work mean to you? Do you think Adams’s generalizations are fair? Why, or why not?
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Suggestions for Writing
Come up with your own four-point “operating philosophy,” based on your experiences or observations, and present it in a personal essay. Create guidelines, as Adams does, that can be summarized in one memorable sentence.
Read further about various workers and their jobs, or observe and interview someone whose work seems to embody certain values. Write your own essay, based on your reading or your field work, about one job and the value it carries.