CiCi's Pizza

If there's anything I've learned over the past few years, it's that the subject of a biography is the worst source. We change memories every time we recall them, we remember the good longer than the bad (which results in old people famously referring to "the good old days," which we all know sucked; they didn't have the internet. QED.), and we tend to exaggerate our own significance or importance in events.

Anyway, what does this have to do with a relatively cheap all-you-can-eat pizza buffet from Texas?

Well, I lived in Texas until around the middle of second grade (when I moved to California), which means my only memories of Texas are the wildly unrealistic imaginings of (at the oldest) a seven-year old. And since those wildly unrealistic memories are the only memories I have of everything in Texas, that entire state has a very pure, innocent, simple, fantastical quality to it in my mind. And CiCi's Pizza is no exception. I loved eating at CiCi's way back then, in part because, hey, pizza is fucking awesome, but also because it was a place where I could put the two best toppings — bell pepper and mushrooms ♥ — on my pizza without my parents turning up their noses.

(Sorry, dad; pineapple will always and forever be the nastiest thing you can put on a pizza.)

It means that, for over fifteen years, there's been a six-year old inside me absolutely dying to go back. Dying to go back, in fact, with the uncontrollable, unbearable zeal that six-year olds tend to have. And, since my only memories of CiCi's are memories from that same obsessive six-year old, you can only guess my reaction when I saw a CiCi's commercial at my friend's house before I plugged my Xbox into it.

"Wait... why are they advertising here? The closest CiCi's is in Phoenix, Arizona [I'd checked]. No one in their right mind would ever drive all the way out there [except me] just to eat at CiCi's... wait... what if...?"

I then had to check if there was one closer. It was required. Mandated. My inner six-year old wouldn't let me ignore the commercial and catch up with my friends. Now, it said.

And I did. There's one in Chino Hills, just two hours away from me, and I was nowhere near rational when I found out.

Evidently my insane, fanatical excitement was pretty clear, because my buddies arranged for us to head down there the very next evening. Not twenty-four hours after seeing that commercial, and I was heading down to Chino Hills with an absolutely ecstatic inner six-year old in tow.

It was an enjoyable all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. But for me, the experience had nothing to do with the food, or the building, or anything. It was all abstract. I was back, after fifteen years, and there was some intangible yet grand significance to it, spawned purely from wildly larger-than-life memories from my childhood.

Now, there's another memory regarding CiCi's, too, which my dad wrote about on the Tuesday I went with him.

I remember being at CiCi's one time having just finished ten slices of pizza, all by myself. It was a huge accomplishment to me, and I remember showing off my plate, with all ten pizza crusts lying on it — Look! Look, you can count them yourself! — when my dad decided to discredit me. "It doesn't really count," he said, "because you only ate, like, half of each slice."

Maybe I did only eat half of each slice, I can't remember. All I remember is that cold, empty feeling that comes from having your achievements cheapened by someone whose opinion you value highly.

And so, when I went to CiCi's with my dad last week, I ate ten slices (taking care to intentionally not eat the whole slice, just to poke fun at him), and made it very, very clear that my inner six-year old was giving a figurative "Fuck you" through time and was, at long last, vindicated.

... and then, because I have a stomach much larger now than a six-year old, I kept eating. Those slices are pretty small, after all.