Pizza Repair

   It's good to have occasional accidents and disasters as long as no one gets hurt. The other night we had a couple of guests in the Shêdeau for pizza. Normally I would prepare and bake the pizza in the Shêdeau so I could chat with our guests. But I was on the final chapter of an audio book and my loan was ending that evening.

   I left Teresa to entertain our guests in the Shêdeau while I retreated to the big house and put my ears on. When the pizza was done I picked the pan up with hot pads and headed out the door. 

  The mosquitoes have been bad and as I hastened to shut the door behind me the pan leapt out of my hand and fell face down, half on the welcome mat and half on the wooden porch floor. It made a clanging noise which I thought would alert the others 137 paces away, but the noise of the river rapids covered my boo-boo.

  I got our largest spatula and turned the pie face up. The half that had been on the floor looked ok. The part that landed on the mat looked like a fresh lava flow. I tried smooshing the ridge of cheese back in place while scraping the toppings off the mat and spreading them on the cheese.

  I knew I couldn’t  present this mess to our guests. Then I got the insight that would turn this evil into a good. I turned the oven to broil and slipped the pie onto the top shelf for a couple of minutes.  Except for the dent in one part of the perimeter, it looked like new.

  As our guests munched on their slices I held my breath waiting for someone to bite into a pebble. I was prepared to apologize for the stray olive stone even though I hadn’t used any olives.

  A person may tell him or herself they are never going to drop their freshly baked pizza on the floor. What I say to that person is you haven’t made many pizzas.

Galileo discovered gravity by dropping a cheese lovers and a personal pan pizza off the Tower of Punza.