Chain Reaction

Gerald came into the kitchen where Paul sat at the table on his phone.

“Hey, I was thinking about ordering some dinner,” Gerald said. “What are you up to?”

“I just got an email notification that my dominos arrived,” Paul said.

“Dude, WTF?” Gerald said, taken aback. “You ordered Domino’s and you didn’t tell me? I woulda gone in on that.”

“Oh, I got plenty if you want some,” Paul said. “Like, 1,100 pieces.”

“1,100 pieces?!” Gerald’s eyes shot wide open. “That’s way too many! Where are we gonna put them all?”

“In the living room,” Paul said.

“You think they’ll all fit?” Gerald cried.

“Of course,” Paul said. “If we set them up right.”

“And how much did this cost?” Gerald asked. “Do you need me to spot you rent this month?”

“Relax man, it was 20 bucks,” Paul said.

“But what about–”

Paul held up his hand. “I’m gonna stop you there. We appear to be having a comical misunderstanding. You seem to be talking about Domino’s, the fast food pizza chain, whereas I’m talking about dominoes, the wooden blocks you set up in patterns to knock over. Now, we could go a little bit further with this back-and-forth, all the while improbably avoiding a variety of seemingly unavoidable words, given the context. Cheese, toppings, wood, pizza, to name a few. You could ask me what kinds I got, and I could say there are some blue ones, to which you can act astonished and concerned. But really, wouldn’t it be better if you just ordered us a pizza and then we played with my rad new domino set until it arrived?”

“Honestly, yeah,” Gerald said. “That does sound like a good idea.”

And so, that’s what they did.