Four Twelve Birchwood Drive

Somewhere on Birchwood Lane, a woman is standing at her front door at 8:47 PM, phone in hand, staring at a screen that says her pizza has been delivered. The door is empty. The step is empty. The air smells of nothing. She did not order nothing. She ordered a large pepperoni, and she has been waiting forty-seven minutes for it, and the app has the audacity to say it is already here.

It is not here. It is, as she will discover when she calls the store, sitting on someone else's porch on Birchwood Drive — a completely different street, a completely different ZIP code, currently being eaten by a family called the Hendersons who did not order it, did not pay for it, and apparently just decided to go ahead and have dinner.

That gap — between "Delivered" and delivered — is where this song lives. Act I is a soprano recitative that barely contains itself: the facts come out dry and precise, a police report set to parlando strings. Act II is where it falls apart in the best possible way, with Kyle the delivery driver (tenor, breezy, genuinely proud of his door photo) and a store manager (bass-baritone, oleaginous, bearing the gift of a 20% discount on a next order she has already decided she will never place) arriving to make things considerably worse. Act III hands the whole thing to the full orchestra and choir, who have been waiting for exactly this moment and are not going to underplay it.

The punchline is delivered spoken, into silence, after three hammer chords: One. Star.

[Verse 1 — Recitative, soprano, rubato] The app said "Delivered." Eight forty-seven PM. I went to my door. I looked at my step. No pizza. No note. No Kyle. No anything. I checked the app again. (still delivered) I called the store.

[Verse 2 — Soprano, pulse begins] A pleasant young man named Derek Put me on hold for six minutes Then told me — quite casually — That the driver had left it At four twelve Birchwood Drive.

I live on Birchwood Lane. Not Birchwood Drive. Not the Drive. The Lane. They are not the same street, Derek. They are in entirely separate ZIP codes.

[Pre-Chorus — Soprano, building] It has been forty-seven minutes. Forty-seven, forty-seven. That pizza is now cold. It is being eaten By the Hendersons. Who did not order it. But apparently Decided to keep it!

[Chorus — Soprano full voice, choir humming under] He followed the GPS! (He followed the GPS!) The GPS sent him to the Drive! (To the Drive, to the Drive!) The app said "Delivered" — It was delivered somewhere, Just not to the person alive At four twelve Birchwood Lane!

[Verse 3 — Tenor enters as Kyle] KYLE: I followed the GPS, ma'am. That's what we're supposed to do. The GPS said Birchwood Drive — That's literally all I knew! I took a photo of the door, ma'am — Uploaded to the app — Beautiful photo of a door, ma'am — I don't know whose door that is, but it's a great photo!

[Duet — Soprano furious, tenor breezy] Forty-seven minutes! (Great photo though!) A door that is not my door! (GPS, ma'am!) The Hendersons are eating my pepperoni! Would you like a new pizza? Yes, Kyle! That is what I would like!

[Bridge — Bass-baritone enters as the store manager] MANAGER: Ma'am, I understand your frustration — We certainly value your patronage — May I offer you, as a gesture of goodwill, A twenty percent discount On your next order?

[Soprano response — sharp, furious] I don't want a discount on my next order. I want my pizza. It is forty-seven minutes old. The Hendersons are eating it! They don't even know whose it is.

[Final Chorus — Full orchestra, SATB choir fortissimo] ALL: She followed the address — (She followed the address!) The address that she typed in the app! (In the app, in the app!) It said Birchwood Lane — L-A-N-E — the Lane! Not the Drive — not the Drive — Not the GPS-guided mistake That the driver called thriving!

[Choir counterpoint, overlapping voices] Forty-seven minutes! The app said delivered! The Hendersons are eating it right now! Four twelve Birchwood Drive — Not Lane — not Lane — not Laaane!

[Final cadence] MANAGER: (spoken) The discount expires December thirty-first. SOPRANO: (spoken) One. Star. [Three fortissimo orchestra chords: D — F — Bb] [Silence.]