The best way to get fired from your job
And a dumb way to make deep dish at home that is actually fine
EDIT: This was supposed to be my first paid-subscriber-only post, and it’ll read that way just as, say, practice. But I felt really guilty about withholding anything fun, considering a bunch of you signed up for the newsletter today, unexpectedly.
The Pizzle was, and will always be free, no ads, no paid links, no sponsored content.
I’m wrestling with myself over the concept of subscription material, so bear with me as I come to terms with what I’m doing. For those of you who’re literally giving me money to let me be a jackass and release me from doing as much freelance work, I owe you. Davida and I have some things planned that are making me laugh and we haven’t even done them yet.
Here’s the button, and if you think this is any good, forward these emails, share on Twitter and Facebook, and never stop being ridiculous. Maybe not to the point where you get fired, like the story I’m about to reveal (my face is turning red the longer I think about it), but you get it.
Love,
Dannis
So in my last post (please come to the pop-up, dinguses), I alluded to a story of mine about getting fired from a job because of a vulgar email address.
The reason why I’m only sending this to paid subscribers is because it is the best story ever, and also, if the entire Internet sees this story, I may potentially lose future freelance gigs. Not that my old blog wouldn’t do the trick.
It’s already funny enough that I wasn’t tagged in this big feature I did for Serious Eats that just came out a few days ago.
They just used my name instead of my Instagram handle @dickholedannis. I don’t blame them. Also, the whole crew over at Serious Eats knows my antics already so I’m sure they’re giggling over there.
So anyway: The Story.
A long while back, I was struggling — I’d lost my job at the IT company I’d worked for (man, I worked there for 10 whole years), and my sister’s friend, a hiring manager, saw that I was downtrodden about it. She offered me a temporary gig as a writer for the digital marketing agency she worked at. It paid very well.
The job itself was fairly mundane; I’d contact prominent blogs to see if I could write a guest post on their site (this almost NEVER worked), and get links back to our client’s site, ostensibly boosting their search engine optimization.
For one of our clients, the entire team used a shared Google spreadsheet which we all had access to. We would keep track of our work history and make notes on each other’s progress. Pretty simple.
The thing was, this particular client also had access to the spreadsheet and they could see who was doing what work along the way. Including me.
Here comes the problem.
My Google username is assbagmcjizzle.
Assbag McJizzle. Say that out loud. Email me at assbagmcjizzle@gmail.com if you don’t believe me. I’ll say hi.
Listen, I don’t know why I picked that specific string of words. It doesn’t matter. I obviously don’t care about my usernames. You saw my Instagram handle, and most of you follow me on Twitter, so you know my username is @fartsandwich.
One day, I received an email with a single line. All it said was this:
“Who is Assbag McJizzle?! This is wildly inappropriate.”
Fuck.
I lied and replied, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. That’s the Google email address I just use to catch spam, you know, when I sign up for services and I don’t want to deal with the emails. I’ll switch to my other email address, I didn’t realize I was signed into that one.”
I was fired the next day.
Ever since I started working on that Serious Eats article, I still found myself craving deep dish, despite the fact that I went to so many restaurants for research and ate almost all the leftovers. But deep dish pizza is expensive, and it usually runs from $20 - $30 per pie.
I thought to myself, “Dannis Ree, you are a man of the people. Is there a cheap and easy way to enjoy deep dish from the comfort of your own home? Where you can be naked and prance around the house at the same time? So much prancing. Prance, prance, prance.”
Why not use a pre-made pie crust out of sheer laziness? It even says “Deep Dish” on it, so of course, this is very authentic.
I am a true genius. An Assbag McJizzle, so you could say.
As far as I’ve seen, deep dish pizza isn’t made with shredded cheese, just layers of the sliced stuff. This is a whole pound of cheese. Eating this much cheese will stop you from taking a dump for about a week. Trust me, I know. I’m a dump expert.
To be true to Chicago’s spirit, I topped the entire pie with a thin layer of Italian sausage. Italian sausage is the only kind of sausage they eat in Italy. Trust me, I know. I’m a sausage expert.
To maximize laziness, I also purchased a canned pizza sauce. When you are being lazy, always make sure you get very cheap ingredients. Please note that the second ingredient in this sauce is corn syrup. Only the best for me!
Of course, you can’t forget the Parmesan cheese! This cheese is made out of actual sawdust.
Hmm. This doesn’t seem right. It actually looks good. And mostly like a deep dish pizza.
To finish it off I sprinkled on an Italian seasoning blend that has been in my cupboard for centuries. I am fairly certain that I inherited it from my Korean ancestors.
After about half an hour, I pulled this out. It smelled great.
Turns out, I’m onto something because it tasted like a cheap slice of deep dish pizza, in a good way.
Davida came home from work, ate a slice and said, “This is actually pretty good.” Then she pranced around and sang, “Deep dish gives me instant diarrhea!” See, we are getting married for a reason.
So, if you’re not from around Chicago and you’ve always wanted to try a shitty version of this delicacy, well, now you know it’s really easy to make at home.
(So in the scenario that you’re a paid subscriber and this content exclusively comes to you, there’ll be a little note underneath this email saying you shouldn’t forward this to other people, but, I didn’t write that postscript. It’s fine, you can forward it.
The only person that can fire me is you, and you already know my Google username.)