A rainy Friday night. 

Nothing was going on in town, so the pizza take out business was hopping – a full parking lot, with delivery drivers coming and going like ants returning to the hill. 

She was going to do drive through pick up, but the line was around the building, so she pulled up, parked, and ducked her way in through the rain. 

Each of the handful of booths had a person waiting. She glanced up at the pizza ticker screen, and saw that twenty pies were in the prep or oven. 

She found a chair. 

There were at least eight young people making pizzas – their pace was steady and quick. They would focus on their pizza, then glance at screens above them to see what ingredients or toppings they needed. There was an underlying camaraderie amongst the young workers, smiling and working hard in the rush. 

The door opened, and a thin elderly woman with a steel grey mullet, a tee shirt, and jeans entered.  She marched up to the counter and stood, scowling, until a young man approached her and asked her how he could help her. 

From her perch by the door, she couldn’t hear her – but she could only imagine what the woman was saying. 

The woman’s body language was tense, and her facial expressions moved from anger to scowl and back. 

Finally she threw her hands up and said “I’m going out to the truck. The kids are out there” and stomped out the door past her, muttering “it’s been an (expletive) hour.  

She remembered her first paying job – at a pizza restaurant. Decades have passed, but a little goes a long way. 

In a few minutes her name was called, and she gratefully took her pizza. 

She told the workers as she left “thank you so much! Y’all are doing a great job!” And they responded with a hale of thanks. 

She left happy, albeit a little rained on as she walked to the car.