It starts out as a quiet evening, snug on the sofa watching a movie.
Suddenly, lights flash through the blinds.
A siren blares.
You see an ambulance in the driveway of the house next door. Oh, no!
The driver jumps out, opens the side door and pulls out … a pizza?
What’s up with that?
Why, it’s the delivery car for Cactus Jack’s Pizza.
The 1996 Ford diesel ambulance was part of the inventory when John Condyles took over ownership of the pizzeria at 12926 Mukilteo Speedway. When not in use, it’s parked by the busy thoroughfare to draw attention to the eatery in the Alberstons complex just over the Lynnwood border.
In daylight, there’s no mistaking the ambulance for a real emergency vehicle. It’s painted bright yellow and orange with a cartoon jackrabbit and cactus. It reads: “Serving your emergency pizza needs.”
The inside has a few modifications to meet the needs of a pizza medic.
“The part where the slab was where they put the patients is taken out,” Condyles said. “That’s where the warmer is. It warms 60 pizzas.”
It gets about 12 miles a gallon. “I use it to make bigger deliveries,” he said. The other delivery vehicle is a Camry.
The lights and sirens are the real shrieking thing, but the pizza ambulance doesn’t go screaming down the Speedway all lit up. The Code 3 treatment is by request only, typically by schools, parties, businesses and to give the neighbors a jolt on an otherwise mundane night.
“When I pull up, I give a little siren. It is really loud,” Condyles said. “The kids really like it. They think it’s fun.”
He’s used the ambulance to deliver pizza to fire departments. No, they don’t compare bells and whistles.
“They got the big new ones,” he said.
Send What’s Up With That? suggestions to Andrea Brown at 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown. Read more What’s Up With That? at www.heraldnet.com/whatsup.
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