High Flying Pies

So I can't cook, no question about that. I can make sandwiches (grilled cheese, PBJ, turkey with extra mayo), I can make a good omelette, and I can apply heat to frozen food. But I can't actually cook. But when I was in high school I worked at a pizza shop and I learned to toss a pizza. I wasn’t good at tossing pizzas. I worked with guys that were like the Meadowlark Lemons of flour, juggling multiple pies with a single finger. I was a serviceable pizza-maker, a gentleman’s C. My pizzas came out okay. The one time when I tried to do something flashy I ended up losing the pie in the ceiling fan. (I regularly earned the honor of cleaning the grease trap for my failings – but for this one I got to clean the employee bathroom.)

As a consolation, my son thinks is absolutely hilarious.

This semi-skill comes in handy every once in a while. At a make your own pizza party, while the other parents tugged and yanked on the dough I methodically kneaded it, worked out the bubbles and gave it a few quick tosses. The other parents ended up with oblong pies, shaped more like driftwood or lava. My pie was roughly a circle with even thickness throughout. The other parents looked on – impressed.

GoofBoy looked on with pride, “My dad’s really good at tossing pizzas. One time when he worked at a pizza place, he tossed it so high, it went into the ceiling fan!”

He didn’t know about the part where I had to clean the bathroom.