I am about to humiliate myself.

I thought about delaying the inevitable by writing a lead in paragraph or two, but why keep everyone in suspense at my own expense? “The Pizza Delivery Man” story has been told by me so many times, it should have, by now, made its way, through osmosis, to the Amazon.com discount website. Maybe I can stall just a bit. It is Thursday, 1 p.m. – as it always has been for the past 17 years – and my Southern Steel Magnolia sisters and I are gathered at Rita’s Place, her manicure and pedicure station at the salon, where no holes are barred; men are hated, berated, laughed at, spat upon, beloved, belittled, embraced, erased, divided, but nine times out of ten, exonerated. We will change the lock on the front door, but leave a spare of the new key under the welcome mat. Marriage means, “Always having to take the schmuck back, no matter how sorry you are.”

It seems that on this Thursday, Savannah, who at 56 is still a gorgeous Scarlet O’Hara look-a-like, with an ex-husband list that nearly parallels her age, needs our help: She keeps marrying the same, ultimately good-for-nothing man, in the same body. He may be short this time around, rather than tall, like the last one, or bushy haired rather than bald … but he is the same idiot in a different body, and here is Savannah, yet again, weeping into Rita’s pedicure whirlpool. Her eyes are red and puffy (only highlighting their gorgeous shade of green) and she is hardly able to catch her breath, like a toddler who simply may not have that eighth brownie before supper. “But ‘ah’ (translation: “I”) thought it’d be different this time,” she sniffles with the heaviest, fake Southern accent I have ever semi-respected for its very credible lack of authenticity. We are Southern Sisters, and we do what we must do to help each other, which is why “The Pizza Delivery Man” story must be told. And Yankee, commoner, outsider though I may be, I am the proudest of all magnolias on the tree. Savannah needs cheering up, since the four prescriptions her ex-husbands (all doctors) wrote for her for Xanax, Ativan, Klonipan and Valium haven’t been useful because she sold them to her son’s friends at college at a really decent profit, I am stuck being her mood-altering drug.

In my heart of hearts, I do not think that Savannah deserves “The Pizza Delivery Man Story,” and with it, the deepest of my soul’s humiliation, because this is not the first time Savannah had a bogus nervous breakdown at Rita’s Place: Last April, she sobbed so hard when husband No. 3, a football junkie, left her for a Terry Bradshaw double in Las Vegas, it took every Steel Magnolia sister at the salon nearly 20 minutes to suction her wandering contact lens out from underneath her left eyelid. We called 911 anyway, and off she went, sending the weenie ambulance paramedics into “La-la Savannah Land,” until she arrived at the emergency room into the waiting arms of ophthalmologist, Dr. “Hungry for Large Eyeballs,” husband No. 4. The way Savannah tells it, she did not have the slightest clue that an eye doctor who cannot make love to his wife without having a Gene Wilder movie (Young Frankenstein was his favorite) or Curb Your Enthusiasm – surprise! Only the episodes featuring comedian Richard Lewis, he of huge eyeball fame – playing on the VCR, would find hers in divorce court yet again. She got the house. Dr. Eyeball got the first four seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm in HD and a collection of Mel Brooks movies, none of which Dr. Eyeball coveted as much as he did Robin Hood: Men In Tights. Could it possibly be because Richard Lewis had a featured role in the film? Savannah denies it, saying that once upon a time, she was the ophthalmologist schmuck’s “Maid Marianne.”

Okay. Since I also run an underground medical practice at Rita’s Place – being married to Doc, the Romanian Bredneck (well-bred Redneck) surgeon for 26 years has given me an honorary medical degree of sorts, sort of … as in holding clinic at Rita’s and making the occasional house-call or two. It is my sworn duty to put the patient’s interest first. I have taken the Hippocratic oath and have meant every solemn word of it.

So, all blow dryers in the salon come to a sudden halt. Not a single, blond highlight on foils will be continued, nor will extensions be added to hair that is thinning nor yearning to be longer. A moratorium on perms is called for. Not a broom can be seen sweeping up hair that has bitten the dust. It is gather-round time at Rita’s Place. The Yankee Southern Sister, proudest of all magnolias on the tree, is about to make humiliation history, yet again. I whisper into Savannah’s delicate, perfectly shaped ear that I know she uses disposable contact lenses, and that the next time she pulls this weeping garbage, I will whistle for my sisters in New York City to fly out for an entertaining little visit to Georgia, where they will permanently tattoo any shade of green she fancies into her fluttery phony eyelids. She sniffles, a la Scarlet O’Hara, but nods into her Aloe infused Puff’s Kleenex.

“The Pizza Man Delivery Story.” A bobby pin could drop, that is how silent it is in the salon. I take a shallow breath because I feel like strangling Savannah, but I begin: Once upon a time, when I lived for seven years (instead of the one year Doc swore would be the completion of his fellowship) in grey, barren Pittsburgh, where only the movie Flash Dance brought me any solace, my son, Jarrett, was a toddler. (An extremely articulate toddler.) At 2, he was not only completing sentences, he was engaging in entire conversations. What a proud mommy I was, until I ordered a pepperoni pizza to be delivered to our modest town home one evening. Jarrett was not only articulate; he was a mini-Spiderman in the making and could climb any mountain. It was not unusual for me to find him on or near the ceiling, after he opened the dishwasher, pulled out the first shelf, climbed on it, then the top shelf, then hoisted himself up onto the counter where he would be able to open the cabinet that contained the dishes and last link to his completion of his journey atop Mt. Everest, which was in real life, was atop our refrigerator. Therefore, Jarrett was the sweet, agile, can’t take your eyes off of him, toddler, who had to come with me into the bathroom every time I showered. Otherwise, I would likely never see him again, other than in a current issue of National Geographic, “The Mountain Series.”

The doorbell rang. “Pizza,” Jarrett screamed, running down the stairs. With a $20 bill in my hand, I opened the door to find our very familiar deliveryman holding a piping hot pepperoni pizza. Just as I was exchanging the pizza with the money, Jarrett looked directly at him and said, “Hi, pizza delivery man. My mommy has a string in her private parts.” He also looked directly at the “private part.”

Beet red takes on new meaning when a grown man and grown woman are not expecting to be embarrassed beyond all measure. “Yeah,’ Jarrett went on, “she does!”

“Jarrett,” I screamed, as I threw the $20 at the now statue of a pizza deliveryman (a huge tip in those days), grabbed the pizza and slammed the door, never, ever to order a pizza again. All I could do was to stare, in shock, at Jarrett, as he pulled the warm mozzarella cheese, like a string, from the gloriously piping hot wonderful pizza. I opened a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, since I lost all taste for pizza, and an hour later, I tucked an articulate, innocent, beautiful sleeping toddler soundly into bed.

Shalom, y’all! Wishing you piping hot pizza and a toddler who does not yet speak.