The written loom

In my family, we are very disciplined during the week.. Meals appear at roughly the same hours, as if summoned by a quiet, reliable clock that everyone has silently agreed to obey.. Vegetables are consumed in colors and shapes, sometimes roasted, sometimes steamed, occasionally even celebrated.. Sensible decisions are made, not because anyone shouts about health, but because it is simply what we do from Monday to Thursday.. Water is drunk voluntarily, in glasses that refill themselves throughout the day like a modest act of self-respect.. People discuss things like fiber and vitamins without laughing, trading observations about iron and magnesium the way other families might trade gossip..

There is a certain comfort in this routine.. It feels responsible.. Adult.. Measured..

Then Friday arrives.. Friday is not a day.. Friday is a diplomatic agreement with pizza.

It is the one evening where we collectively pretend that mozzarella is a food group and that pepperoni contains important emotional nutrients. The rules soften at the edges.. No one asks about fiber content.. No one checks labels.. There is an unspoken understanding that life has been sufficiently sensible already and that, for a few sacred hours, melted cheese is allowed to represent happiness, progress, and the entire concept of reward..

So today, like any responsible adult, I opened the app and ordered a pizza..

The app disagreed.. = Order failed.

Fine.. I tried again, assuming it was just a passing glitch, the kind that sometimes appears and disappears like a digital hiccup.. = Order failed..

Again.. = Order failed..

At this point, I began to suspect the application had developed personal feelings toward me. It felt less like a technical problem and more like a judgment. Somewhere, a line of code was perhaps quietly shaking its head at my choices, suggesting a salad instead..

I called the company.. “Would you like to place the order by phone?” the young woman asked politely, her voice gentle, as if she were offering me a perfectly reasonable lifeboat..

“No,” I replied.

Because, as every modern citizen knows, telephone orders belong to the ancient world now. They live in the same museum as paper maps and handwritten directions. The offers live inside the apps. The discounts live inside the apps. The coupons live inside the apps.

Apparently civilization itself now lives inside the apps..

We no longer just use them, we orbit around them.. They decide what we see, what we pay, which options are visible, and which ones have quietly vanished into a previous version.. And even when a kind human being is on the other end of the line offering help, some stubborn part of the brain whispers: “If it doesn’t exist in the app, does it truly exist at all?”

So I got dressed and drove to the store.. “Can you help me?” I asked, holding my phone like a stubborn relic that refused to cooperate.. The employee, who looked approximately eighteen years old and therefore significantly more qualified in technology than I am, shook her head kindly.. “I’m sorry. Only through the application.”

Of course..

• The pizza existed.
• The ingredients existed.
• The oven existed, warm and ready.
• The building existed, solid and unbothered by software updates.

But the application had not yet granted permission for the pizza to enter this dimension. Everything I needed was visible, almost close enough to smell, and yet somehow trapped behind a digital curtain.. I stood there for a moment, feeling slightly ridiculous, in a world where you can literally see your dinner and still not be allowed to order it without the blessing of a server, a database, and a user interface.

I returned home defeated.. My brother looked at me and asked the question of the times.. “Did you update the app?”

Naturally, I had not.. In my defense, I had updated many other things recently, my browser, my expectations, my patience, but apparently not the one thing that truly holds power over Friday nights.. So I deleted it.. Reinstalled it.. Waited for the progress bar to creep forward with the slow authority of something that knows you are desperate.. Logged in again, carefully typing the password I only pretend to remember.. And suddenly… Success! Victory!

Civilization restored.. The order went through.. The angels sang, quietly, but distinctly.

The pizza was finally within reach, no longer an abstract concept but a real possibility. I could already imagine the box on the table, the shared silence of people biting into something terrible and wonderful at the same time.. There was only one small problem.. The pizza I wanted came with pepperoni.. Because, as everyone knows, the road to paradise is paved with pepperoni. Thin circles of salt and certainty, promising satisfaction in a way no vegetable ever quite manages on a Friday night.. But somewhere during the application’s glorious evolution, the option for extra pepperoni had disappeared.. like ..Gone.. Vanished! Removed by people who clearly do not understand the emotional importance of additional pepperoni. Perhaps, in a meeting somewhere, it had been discussed as an unnecessary feature. A minor detail. A line item to be sacrificed for the sake of a cleaner design.. On a spreadsheet, it was probably a trivial checkbox. In my living room, it was the difference between “good” and “this is exactly what I needed.”

So yes.. I won the battle.. The application allowed me to order dinner.. The pizza arrived, warm and cooperative, carrying just enough indulgence to mark the end of the week but not quite enough pepperoni to match the image in my head.. But once again technology reminded me who is really in charge..

• Not the customer.
• Not the restaurant.
• Not even the pizza.

The application.. Always the application.. It decides which toppings exist as options, which sizes are permissible, which combinations are “unavailable” for reasons no one can quite explain. It shapes our choices quietly, one missing button at a time, until we find ourselves grateful not for what we wanted, but for what the interface allows..

And somewhere, in a brightly lit office, a software developer is probably deciding right now whether I deserve extra pepperoni next Friday. Maybe they are looking at metrics, or A/B tests, or a report about user behavior.. Maybe they are debating whether to simplify the menu.. They do not know me.. They do not know my family, our tired Fridays, our small rituals of reward.. But still, in a way, they hold the final word..

I sincerely hope they choose wisely..

Tatiana,