“Another one of Johnny’s famously dumb ideas,” she’s probably thinking right now, watching on her badass big screen TV. “He’d sign up for anything.”

It’s true, I would. I like to be picked for stuff. I always stop on the sidewalk when activists ask me if I have a minute to listen to them rattle off statistics about the environment and hungry children. I love when I get a phone call out of the blue from someone who picked me to take their survey. And yes, eleven years ago when the show Death Race was the biggest thing on TV, I happily added my name to the millions of Americans writing in to become contestants. They finally got back to me last week.

Back when I signed up, Death Race was a ratings giant. Everyone wanted to watch people speed across the country with the goal of murdering their fellow contestants, with the last living driver to make it across the finish line winning a prize of ten million dollars (if more than one driver made it across, they all had to split the money, so it’s important to kill your opponents).

Death Race has fallen in the ratings over the years, which is why the prize this season is a large pizza with toppings of your choice. I was pretty sure that since the prize is so measly me and the other drivers were on the same page about pretty much making this a cross-country road trip that ends with all of us having a fun little pizza party. No reason to kill people just to get the whole pie.

“I bet he thought this was just gonna be a cross-country road trip that ends in a pizza party,” she’s probably saying to her new and very successful husband while watching me on their huge and awesome television. “Jesus, what a sap.”

And I did, until the driver to my right tossed a grenade into my passenger seat.

This guy must be real hungry. I quickly toss the grenade back into his car and smash into his side to make him keep control of the wheel so he can’t toss the grenade back. His car goes off the road and slams into a tree, throwing the driver through his windshield and against the tree at 80 MPH. The driver collapses in parts on the hood of his car just a beat before the grenade detonates and I watch the blast in my rear view mirror.

“Extra cheese. Mushrooms. And sausage.” I repeat my topping choices out loud as I drive. That pie is mine. That pie is mine alone. The sign by the side of the road says, “You Are Now Entering New Mexico.”