“Pizza!” yelled my son as I placed a cauliflower into the shopping bag. The confused cashier looked up and I explained, for the umpteenth time that day, that “pizza” was his favourite word. It began after the first time I made him a pizza. To build up the excitement of this new culinary experience, I spoke to him about pizza in deferential terms.

“Ooh, you’re having pizza, you lucky boy!”

Pizza was such a success that it became one of his first words, and every time he said “pizza” I’d act surprised and repeat the word back to him.

“What would you like for breakfast?”

“Pizza!”

“Pizza? What would you like for lunch?”

“Pizza!”

“Pizza? Do you know what we’re having for tea tonight?”

“Pizza!”

“No. Fishcakes.”

Whilst reading nursery rhymes, I’d sometimes stop to see if he could finish a line by himself.

“Baa baa black sheep, have you any—”

“Pizza?”

“Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the—”

“Pizza!”

It provided endless entertainment, even when it escalated to “Humpty Pizza sat on a pizza, Humpty Pizza had a great pizza. All the King’s pizzas and all the King's pizza couldn’t put Pizza together a-pizza.”

“Pizza” was my normally introverted son’s icebreaker when meeting new people. He’d say “pizza” to the old ladies who stopped to talk to him in his pushchair. They found it endearing, but I was getting concerned about the amount of times per day he was saying the P-word. It was the first thing he’d say after waking up in the morning, and when I said, “Night-night,” he’d reply, “Pizza-pizza.”

At a baby and toddler group, I was watching him play when I heard him say “pizza” to another child.

“Pizza,” replied the smiling girl.

I assumed she was copying, but then from a different part of the hall, I heard another child say “pizza.”

I asked that girl’s mother if she’d heard her daughter. She told me that “pizza” was her favourite word.

Over the next few weeks, I heard “pizza” from an increasing number of children. It seemed to be replacing other words in their vocabulary at an alarming rate. What was even more remarkable was that they were somehow able to use “pizza” to convey and understand abstract ideas. Although I couldn’t detect any nuisance in pronunciation or delivery, it was clear that they were starting to communicate in a new language. A language consisting of just one word, and that word was, well, I don’t have to tell you what that word was.

… It was “pizza.”

Teaching my son new words became an almost impossible task. I’d tell him the name of a flower or a type of bird, and if he saw another of the same he’d get excited, point at the bluebells or the sparrows, and shout, “Pizza! Pizza!”

Other parents didn’t seem to believe there was anything unusual about the way their children had started to converse, but it wasn’t long, however, before they began slipping “pizza” into their own speech. People greeted each other with “good pizza,” or “pizza morning.” I even overheard phone conversations conducted almost entirely in “pizza.”

One evening, I turned on the television and a newsreader was saying “pizza” over and over again, then it cut to an interview with a reporter, standing outside a factory, who answered “pizza” to every question. Well, I assumed they were questions, as all the interviewer asked was, “Pizza?”

Then it moved on to a foreign news story. I don’t know what it was about, but it was being reported from a village in China. An elderly woman was yelling, “Bisa bing! Bisa bing! Bisa bing!” Subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen that said, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”

The worst of it was that, at the same time “pizza” was becoming an all-pervasive language, I was losing the ability to make myself understood, or rather, other people were losing the ability to understand everyday words. When I spoke, they looked at me as if I was pizza. Perhaps I am going pizza? I think I may be the only pizza alive who doesn’t communicate entirely through the word pizza. If it’s the rest of the pizza that has gone pizza, then why do I alone pizza? If it’s the result of some pizza virus or pizza anomaly, then I’m pizza I have been spared this pizza because I’d rather be pizza than pizza. Pizza, pizza temporary pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza. Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza cure pizza. Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza.

Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, immune pizza, pizza, pizza. pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza pizza.

Pizza pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza. Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza. Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, nightmare, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza.

Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza.

THE PIZZA