Pizza, Pizza.
I’m pretty sure that if you live in the United States, you’ve heard this term. The pizza chain, Little Caesars, has used the double word phrase for a while now. And since the internet (which we all know never lies) reports that it operates in 28 countries, there is a good chance readers in foreign lands may have heard this slogan as well—or at least something like it. And, regardless of what you might think about their pizza quality, they do have some fun promotions.
Years ago—so many, that even Google or Google AI can’t find it—the famous pizza chain had a promotion. A promotion that may have been widespread or localized. I do not know. What I do know is what we did. What we’ve done. And what we’ll continue to do. Steal breadsticks.
Yup. Steal breadsticks.
Technically, it’s not stealing. They did say “Forever”. They did. Not us.
A couple of weeks ago my family wanted to watch a movie (The Wild Robot—which is awesome!) and eat pizza. Little Caesars is inexpensive and quick. I like it because they use muenster cheese—which I love. Still, I’m tangenting, a little. I haven’t written regularly enough that I am struggling to get back into my groove of plot development. So, please forgive me. Let’s tangent together, shall we?
In my house we have a few running jokes. One is which child is the favorite. When we get together, if someone does something really kind or amazing, I will say something like, “Oh, you just might be in the running for ‘the favorite’.” or “Look who wants to be ‘The Favorite’?” Another, more popular joke is the one about who gets ‘the bag’ when I die. ‘The bag’ is the Little Caesars promotion pizza bag.
My three oldest children have moved out of the house. At this point, it is just my wife, myself, and our youngest at home. I’ve written about her a few times. We snowshoe in winter. So, at this rate, she has been willed ‘the bag’. We’ve tried to offer her the house, but she wants the bag. The bag offers free bread sticks, for life.
I feel like I’m all over the place with this. Which I might be. Sorry.
Years ago, when our family went to get some cheap pizza, Little Caesars had a promotion, “If you buy an insulated bag, you’ll get free breadsticks everytime you bring it in.” That was the pitch. We went for it. I think the bag cost about $10 or $20. I honestly do not recall. I’m pretty sure it was $10. We bought the bag. Put our pizzas into it and the free bag of breadsticks. Then, left.
After that, we returned with the bag. And returned. And returned. And returned. Each time, we took our free breadsticks and happily left. I know that it’s not much, but, free breadsticks are free breadsticks. Yum.
The more we used the bag, the more wear and tear began to show. The thermal bag easily had room for two regular pizzas and up to two breadstick bags (or one and some dipping sauces). The more we opened it, the more one of the velcro sections on the flap began to tear. So, I glued it. The chemicals in the glue heated and warped the bag a little. Then, the other one began to tear, so I did the same thing to it. It also warped/melted. However, the bag is still good and functioning.
This routine would go on for months. Not everyday. Not every week. But, the activity did go on and on (and still has). There even came a point when the employee who sold us the bag moved up into management of the small franchise where I live. We came in and found that he was not behind the counter. We talked to the new guy behind the register and he was confused about the promotion. It had been about a year of us using the pizza bag and we had become accustomed to just being handed the breadsticks by the regular register fella. And now, confusion.
The new guy had the look of someone who had been hit with a stun gun. “Uhm… I, uh… I need to check on this.” He called back to someone and the friendly face of the guy we knew popped out, with a big’ol smile on his face, and said, “Yeah. Free breadsticks.” And we, once again, got our free breadsticks.
We often joke about how the one time purchase of our insulated pizza bag has more than sufficiently paid for itself. How we probably are the only people who still use it. How everyone else’s bag probably has torn or forgotten about, or the bag owner’s just gave up and figured the promotion people never expected anybody to actually come back for free breadsticks “for life” or “forever’, which ever word(s) was used. But we have.
This last time, a couple weeks ago, when my youngest and I went to collect out Hot-n-Ready, I asked her, “Should we ask for our free breadsticks, still?”
“YES!” It was not yelled, but the energy of a yell was in it. “You don’t just walk away from free breadsticks. They did this. They came up with the promotion. If they didn’t want to give away free breadsticks forever, they shouldn’t have offered.”
Can’t argue with that. It’s true. Well, you can, but you’d be wrong. And on the receiving end of a harsh lecture. At any rate, we entered the place. Punched in our code. Got our pizza. Then, as we put our pizzas and wings into the bag, we mentioned to the brand new guy behind the register, “So, we’re supposed to get free breadsticks if we bring our bag.”
The guy couldn’t have been more carefree or cared less (in a positive way). He just leaned backward, reached out, grabbed a bag of breadsticks, handed it to us and said, “Sure.” Then, he called out to the pizza people in the back (these would be the people making pizza, not people made of pizza,that would be cool and possibly crazy), “I just gave away another free bread!”
My daughter and I just laughed, packed it all up, and left for home. My wife was both surprised, and not, that we got breadsticks—even though we didn’t order it.
Yeah, eventually, that coveted pizza bag will go to someone. They will inherit the opportunity to bleed Little Caesars Pizza dry. One bag of breadsticks at a time.
Forever.
I know what I wrote.
Almost Heroes 