Calling someone Squidward might be the ultimate roast. Maybe that’s more applicable if you’ve got an 8-year-old listening. But even if not, it’s pretty specific.
It is in the case of a Detroit individual who just wants some pizza. No, they’re not ordering dinner from Bikini Bottom. But they are having something of a surreal ordering experience. In a TikTok that’s gone viral with 6.9 million views, “Frank” confirms a Little Caesars order.
Posted by Xolayaxo (@xolayaxo), she writes in the caption that she’s “lowkey scared to go pick up the order.” And seriously, it’s understandable. Listening to the voice on the other end of the call, the speaker sounds like a mash-up of Red Forman (from That ’70s Show) and an off-brand Bond villain.
Some Days Are Harder Than Others
As the Little Caesars employee verifies the order, his voice sounds very rough—so rough it’s hard to tell if the telephone connection is bad or that’s the man’s speaking voice. But he stays very professional.
After confirming the stuffed crazy bread and pepperoni cheese bread, the employee lets Frank know that the order will take about 15 minutes to complete. And despite sounding utterly enraged at the order, he’s polite. “HAVE A NICE DAY,” he tells Frank.
Xolayaxo sums it up by asking in the in-video text: “Who tf they got working at Little Caesars [sic]?”
The question basically invites the whole internet in.
‘Angrily Polite’
More than one person notes the Squidward connection. But James (@playgroundclown) imagines the wider scenario. “Squidward close to quitting,” he quips.
“They got Squidward helping yall im cryinggg,” concurs leah (@cololycheese).
Kynnedi (@k.ynnedii) asks a pretty logical question: “Why do they got him answering the phone?”
“Shiddd I think thats caesar himself,” another quipped.
“The fact he was angrily polite is fryin me,” summarized another viewer.
What’s Up With Squidward?
Most people are probably pretty familiar with the absurd little krabby-patty-slinging sentient sponge who lives “in a pineapple under the sea.” Like something out of a flu-induced fever dream, SpongeBob SquarePants was a character dreamed up by marine scientist Stephen Hillenburg circa 1999.
He started life as Bob the Sponge, the star of an educational comic book, The Intertidal Zone. Then, after his creator was hired by Nickelodeon to direct the cartoon Rocko’s Modern Life, he started working on animating the earlier comic book.
No narrative arc is complete without challenges and a villain. Thus, Squidward Tentacles enters the scene. He’s an irritable, clarinet-playing octopus who’s got very little patience for SpongeBob’s nonsense. Probably, because he’s often the butt of jokes. But one Medium writer argues that there’s more to the snobby clarinetist.
“Squidward was a soul yearning for inner peace […] He wants the finer things in life and wants to be a respected individual in the aquatic world, but he cannot obtain that,” writes Oreo.
Maybe in some ways, we’re all Squidward: appalled at the world and fighting for dignity. We’ve got artist’s souls and (symbolic) fast-food jobs—a real recipe for rage.
The Pizza Was Not Conflict-Free
In an update to her initial post, Xolayaxo says it did not get better when she and her friend went to pick up their meal. “We ended up going up there. Usually that Little Caesar’s move fast,” she says.
But not this time. She and her friend waited 30 minutes, by the end of which Xolayaxo was speculating that the employee who’d taken their order may have Tourette’s. Because of that, she says she stopped joking about it.
However, she says the worker was “upset.” She claims “he slammed the pizza, broke the register, was hitting the register, and slammed the pizza down on the table,” she recounts.
The slamming made the sauce “pop up all over” her girlfriend, who was with her, and then her friend threw the sauce all over the place.
“It was a whole little thing,” Xolayaxo says. “I don’t think he should be working there.”
She says she decided to cancel the order, and they ended up going someplace else to eat.
BroBible has reached out to Little Caesars via its media email and to Xolayaxo via TikTok direct message and with a comment on her video. We will update this if either respond.
@xolayaxo lowkey scared to go pick up the order . 😭😭😭😭 @Little Caesars