The other night my drunken friend and I went to Pennsylvania Pizza. I was going to be charitable for once by surprising some friends with a pizza. I scanned the list of food items for the best deal. "Two medium pizzas. Only. $7.88"

"Boy, I wonder if they mean two medium pizzas only, or only $7.88," I jested. My friend told me not to be stupid. Just order the pizza.

The cashier gazed at me expectantly. I asked for a medium pizza. She told me I couldn't do that. "Ha, ha," I said. I wasn't in the mood for head games.

"I'm serious. You can't buy one pizza. It's against the rules."

"What? You mean," I sputtered, groping for words. "You mean I'm in a pizza place and I can't buy a pizza?"

"Not unless you want to buy it by the slice, which would be stupid."

"What if I'm too poor to afford two? Or what if I can only eat one?"

"Well, we can charge you for two and give you just one."

"This is discrimination!" screamed my slovenly friend, pounding the counter, obviously having read a little too much about political correctness lately.

I slapped him back into reason.

"I guess . . ." I said despondently, trying to evoke some sympathy. "Maybe I'll just have to buy two pizzas and throw one out."

"Aw, you shouldn't do that," she intoned. "Listen, the register doesn't even have a key for one pizza." As if that was an explanation.

"Sorry. I'd rather throw it out. Give me two."

Flabbergasted, my friend and I sat down at a table. He frantically told me this reminded him of Denny's. He recounted that once when he ordered a Grand Slam Breakfast, he tried substituting two eggs for two sausages. He simply wasn't hungry for meat.

The waitress said it was impossible.

Even when my friend explained it would save Denny's money, she explained that customers could only substitute bacon for sausages. He ordered the Grand Slam and threw out the sausages.

As my friend finished telling his story, another friend sat down and offered a story of his own. One day, a man approached the newsstand where he worked in Philly and asked for a large hot tea with two tea bags. As my friend rang him up for a large, his decrepit boss reached over him and tacked a small tea onto the bill.

"No, I only wanted one tea, ma'am," the man said.

"I know," she said. "But I'm charging you for two."

"What?" asked Mr. Two-Tea, incredulous. "You can shove it up your ass." He stormed off without paying.

Watching the fervor of my friends telling their stories, I began to wonder about some basic tenets I had always taken for granted. The customer is always right; businesses should serve the customer; rules should make sense.

I began to look at everything through different eyes.

Like the time I entered my bank.

"Hi. I'd like to withdraw some money from my account," I said.

"You need some ID," the cashier reminded me.

That's funny, I thought. Only last week I endorsed a check for $400, depositing $1 and pocketing $399. They didn't check my ID then.

Now I didn't have any money in my pocket and all I wanted was a Daily Collegian. It was late in the day so I was forced to try get one at the Uni-Mart. I grabbed a paper and started to walk out. The cashier told me it would cost 30 cents.

I stopped in my tracks. "But isn't it free on campus just across the street?" That's strange, I thought. The ones at the Uni-Mart must be better.

Suddenly I remembered it was Wednesday -- I was glad I was broke. Today was the day that George Yatchisin's column ran.

That night I walked over to Fraternity Row. The pledge at the door asked me if I was over 21. "No, I am 21, but I can't prove it to you because I lost my ID."

He told me I could come in but I couldn't drink.

I entered, unperturbed. I looked around and saw that tonight the wristbands were blue. I wipped out the assortment I had picked off frat floors months before, and slipped on the blue one. I asked for a beer.

"I need a what? A '2 1' written on my hand?" I looked around. Tonight the "2" was green and the "1" was red. No problem. I wipped out an array of magic markers and was instantly of age.

I looked at the youngsters around me, and felt pangs of injustice in the very marrow of my bones. How unfair it was to punish the people who forgot to bring their wristbands and markers. Maybe that was the point -- the forgetful shouldn't be allowed to drink.

I began to wonder about other things. In these days of vegetarianism, why doesn't McDonald's call its hamburgers soybean burgers? If the management wants to portray a friendly image to the customers, why do they dress the cashiers up in prison uniforms?

My roommate, a daytime driver for Cancun's, offered me another story. A few days ago he parked his car out front on Beaver Avenue and walked inside. After gathering his burritos and counting his money, he walked back out to his car, which now had a ticket under the wiper. He was parked in a loading zone.

After his shift, he walked down to the police station. "Excuse me, officer. A couple of days ago I inquired about getting a permit to temporarily park in a loading zone. You see, I'm a delivery boy just trying to earn some money. You told me you don't issue those kinds of permits."

"That's right, son."

"But what am I to do?"

"There's nothing you can do, son."

This made about as much sense to me as charging people $7 a month to park on their own street. It wasn't Cancun's fault at all. It was simply bureaucratic bullshit. But that's a longer story still.