Depending on who you ask, I'm either a massively picky eater or a slob who'll eat pretty much anything - but I like to think I'm somewhere in the middle. Take me to dinner (I mean, if you want) and I'll gobble down most things without too much of a fuss, but there are a couple things you could put on my plate that I absolutely will not abide.
As long as you don't try to make me eat a salad for dinner or anything like that, of course.
But I digress.
While I'll enjoy a nice sauce, pizza base or red pesto, I will not eat a tomato in its regular guise. But the food I hate the most - the mere smell of it enough to make me gag and leave the room - are mushrooms. Can't stand them. If you tried to feed me mushrooms, I would have to reconsider my relationship to you, and I don't even know what I'd do if you tried to put them on something as pure and innocent as pizza. In my opinion, it's worse than pineapple.
As upset as I'd be, I think I'd have enough about me to stop myself from calling the police on you. Even though I'd really want to. But as this bizarre story shows, not everyone in that situation has my (admittedly massively hypothetical) willpower.
With that, let's take a trip to Essex, just outside London in the southeast of England. There, the local police force were forced to release a rather bizarre recording, wherein a lady had called the cops over an incorrect pizza order. She'd ordered a nice meaty pizza, but was shocked and devastated when the order arrived and it was - shudder - laden with mushrooms.
"I’ve basically been mugged off by a f**king takeaway, would you believe it?" this emergency caller laments, and right away, you can tell this is going to be one of those calls to the cops. Yeah, there's few disappointments more stinging than staring directly at a fresh pizza you can't eat, but there have to be better ways of handling things.
"I rang up for a number 18, a number 18, a meat feast, but she trying to tell me 'nah nah you ordered a number eight', I am allergic to mushrooms so I know for a fact that I did not order a number eight. So I am sitting here with a pizza with fucking mushrooms on that I can’t eat. £11.99 later and she [the pizza shop manager] will not help me."
When the very confused dispatch caller asks the woman how the police can help, the woman admits that having a team of armed cops break down the restaurant's doors and arrest the woman involved would probably be overkill. The woman didn't really know what to do, and "just wanted her money back", according to the dispatch call.
If, like the woman featured in this story, you need to talk to the police, the fire department or a hospital on a non-emergency basis, please don't dial 999 (or 911 if you're in the USA). Instead, please dial 101, and someone will be glad to help you out.
