It involves a college coed in Provo named Anna who wrote on her personal blog about her less-than-pleasant encounter with Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble while working her part-time job delivering pizzas.

Anna wrote on her blog (www.cartoonbrickwall.blogspot.com) that, while delivering pizzas to Bramble's home, she had to explain to him her company doesn't take personal checks, Bramble pontificated that he was the majority leader of the Utah Senate and had never bounced a check. If he did, he bellowed, it would be all over the news because of who he was.

He also managed, in what she described as a long, laborious diatribe, to let her know that he was a CPA and knew that a check is the same thing as cash.

She didn't appreciate the condescending approach, so she wrote about the experience on her blog, which she naively thought would be seen only by her circle of friends who read each others' online musings.

Little did she know that her blog would find a greatly expanded audience, being passed first from friends to friends, then to political hacks and finally to the news media. Her story has appeared on media blogs, including The Salt Lake Tribune, and reported on KSL Radio and in the Deseret News.

Here's my take.

First, Bramble has been in the middle of controversy numerous times, mostly because of his aggressive style and his passionate partisanship, but none of the past stories of Bramble encounters, written and broadcast by professional reporters, quite hit the communal psyche like Anna's story or painted such a vivid picture of the majority leader.

She is a clever writer whose prose is inviting because of her self-effacing style, often pointing out her own deficiencies, which put her in stark contrast to Bramble. Her writing also is amusing, referring to Bramble at different times as "Mr. Impressive Title," "Mr. Ridiculously Pissed Off," "Mr. Logical Fallacy" and "Mr. Doesn't Know When to Stop."

Another observation is that "Pizza Girl" and Bramble are both, in a way, victims of this new frontier called the Internet and the all-encompassing invasion of the blogosphere.

"Pizza Girl" thought she was communicating to a few friends, but now she is on everyone's radar screen, including Bramble supporters who have posted comments on her blog, skewering her for embarrassing the good senator. She has indicated in subsequent blogs that she didn't expect such a reaction and has become weary of the whole thing.

Bramble was in the comfort zone of his own home when he decided to unload his frustrations on someone he thought had no power to retaliate, no voice that could in any way threaten him.

Boy, was he in for a shock.

If the Internet had been around when I was a paper boy 47 years ago and I had a blog then, I can just imagine what I could have done to some of those jerks on my paper route who also held "impressive" positions.

prolly@sltrib.com