Jul
9
2013

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The Persistence of Pizza

by Tara

This evening, we decided it would be a good idea make a frozen pizza. This is our "too tired to make anything else and can't bear to create any more dirty dishes" meal. The pizza, which I had previously folded in half so I could successfully shove it into our tiny freezer, broke when I tried to pry it open. By the time I was done, it had shattered into three large pieces. Unfettered, I placed them in our tiny oven.

Before long, black smoke began pouring from the minuscule apparatus, and I hurriedly opened the door to check on it. Lo and behold, all three sections were melting and drooping between the bars of the baking shelf like a pizza-version of Salvador DalĂ­'s "The Persistence of Memory." With a trio of inedibley raw dough slabs in mid-bake, there was nothing to do but shove a piece of foil under them and wait.

The Persistence of Pizza

The hands-off approach proved ineffective. Soon, our whole camper was full of billowing smoke. Tyler and I attempted to rectify the situation with a spatula and a set of tongs, and eventually, we got the slices propped up on the rack. Or so we thought. A few minutes later, they were melting, drooping and smoking again. Admitting defeat, we removed the partially burned, and partially raw pizza from the oven.

In the course of doing so, one of the halves flipped over, splattering pizza sauce on the floor, and our newly-cleaned dish towels. Exasperated, we split the remains and washed them down with a cold beer, all the while zoning out in front of a TV show like nothing had happened.

After dinner we surveyed the pizza wreckage in a stunned silence that was broken only by the occasional chuckle about how absurd our lives are at the moment. The kitchen I worked hard to clean this afternoon is now a tomato-smeared warzone. The oven is a crusty cave of cheesy burnt-on stalactites. Neither of us has the energy to fix another mess tonight—we'll simply have to deal with it tomorrow.

Before we head to bed, Tyler shows me this scene from the movie "The Money Pit", and we both bust a commiserative gut laughing at it:

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6 comments

Thank you so much for sharing a bit of silliness from your day. A great story all the way through the video :)
Posted by Dave on July 10th, 2013 at 9:19 AM
This post would have been MUCH better with pictures :)
Posted by Erik on July 10th, 2013 at 7:50 PM
Dave--
You're welcome! A few days ago we decided we should try to record a bit more about what the day-to-day is like out here--there will probably be more silliness ahead :)

Erik--
You're right, and now that you mention it, I can't believe we didn't take any!

Posted by Tara on July 11th, 2013 at 12:14 AM
Oh yes, Kai & I have experienced this kind of exasperating day and have looked at each other and said, "This is our life? Really?! THIS is our life?!".

That movie scene is hilarious! Glad to see you can keep a sense of humor through it all, sometimes it's the only thing that can pull you through these not-so-hilarious-times.

By the way, there's a reason we didn't have many photos from our last three weeks of building our tiny house either - there's only so much energy you have any given day and on days like this, when you're stretched thin, you have ZERO energy to 'document' what's going down. Just get through it in one piece :-)
Posted by Sheila Poettgen on July 11th, 2013 at 4:08 PM
You should build a cob oven. You know, in your infinite spare time.

Seriously, though. Thanks for sharing this. It's nice to see we aren't the only ones who have pizza-on-the-floor-and-I-don't-even-have-the-energy-to-care days.
Posted by Angie on July 12th, 2013 at 12:49 PM
Sheila - Thank you! It's so nice to know you two understand how it is. :-)

Angie - Haha, we did build an earthen oven, actually... just not here. We'll absolutely build one eventually, but only after we have a house and all that. :-)
Posted by Tara on July 14th, 2013 at 12:44 PM