Burned Cardboard

Last night brought another late night at work for Jake so when he finally returned home at 10:00 he was famished because he had been in meetings all day and had no time to eat. I had been up to my mom's for dinner so I didn't have anything prepared but thank goodness to Kelsey who had bought a pizza and was offering her leftovers to Jake. Jake usually likes cold pizza but, for some reason, last night was different and he decided to warm it up. I was in the basement and was ready to go upstairs and heat it up for him but he calmly informed me that he had popped it in the oven already. For the next twenty minutes I listened about crazy meetings, unruly reporters, and the ins and outs of being an editor of a magazine. Jake was on floor acting as a jungle gym for Mason when I asked him about the pizza. He casually said that he would go check it in a few minutes. "What did you set the oven on?", I inquired. The reply I received was something I considered, at first, to be a joke. "Ummm... 400 degrees." Haha- very funny. "No really", I said "What did you put it on." He is looking at me trying to read my face to see if there is really a problem. "Really- 400 degrees. Is that bad?" I heard the last part of that sentence from the stairwell because he was already bounding up the stairs. I should not have been surprised by this but it did not change the fact that I wanted to bang me head against the wall, repeatedly, because my husband really does not understand that not everything has to be cooked at volcano heat speed. Midway up the stairs I knew it was not good. The house was filled with the rank smell of burned cardboard. Oh yeah- I left that part out. He put the entire pizza box in the oven. Smoke was billowing out of the oven. Doors and windows were wide open spilling in the freezing November night air. Kelsey immediately went to work fanning the fire detector trying to prevent it from going off and waking up Tylie. Through all the billowing smoke, Jake emerged with a Little Caesar's box that was completely unsinged, unharmed, unburned. The pizza inside was melty, crispy, and warm to perfection. This did not serve me in my lecture to Jake but I was happy that his meal was preserved and he was not going to go to bed hungry. So today my faith in Little Caesar's is renewed. If their pizza can hold up to Jake's ridiculous "cooking skills" and still be $5- they deserve all my business. And their cardboard boxes deserve a few props too. I do not want to give them 10 stars for taste but I will give them 10 stars for resilience!