Pizza wars

The debate that took place yesterday over the makeup of the pizza order was kind of funny to watch. DC being a liberal magnet, there is a higher percentage of vegetarians here than in the country at large (I'm not saying conservatives are never vegetarians -- I'm saying liberals are more likely to be vegetarians). In any event, this higher concentration tends to lead to an assumption, certainly among vegetarians, that they are a higher percentage of the population than they actually are, even in DC. Their wishes with respect to the pizza order reflect this. Faced with a plan to order 12 pizzas, the veggie crowd insisted that half be vegetarian -- two veggie pizzas and a staggering FOUR cheese-only pizzas. A 13th, meat-centric, pizza was added to the order, and one of the cheese pizzas was changed to pepperoni. I predicted at the time that the only pizza left over would be cheese.

The reason for this is simple: there is pizza you want, pizza you'll eat, and pizza you don't want. You will always first choose the pizza you want, be it vegetarian or meat. For that reason, these two kinds will always be gone first. Once you've had the pizza you want, whether two slices or more, you find yourself debating whether you want one more or whether you've had enough. You look, it's just cheese pizza, you're already kind of full. If you hadn't had any pizza yet and there was only cheese pizza, you'd eat it. If you're borderline full, though, you won't. Sure enough, even though the veggie crowd insisted I was wrong, at the end of lunch today, a full cheese pizza was left over. And nothing else. Vindication, baby.