Red Baron Woes

I love those damn "Red Baron" brand pizzas. I buy one or two of them almost every time I go shopping; they're quick, not too expensive and they go great with cheap beer. Unfortunately, they're also a bit temperamental. The last two pizzas I attempted to bake went horribly awry...

See, I like to buy the "self rising crust" style pizzas Red Baron makes. I like this kind because the crust actually tastes like crust, and not like the cardboard box the pizza comes in. Not long ago, I had a pizza in the oven for a few minutes when I started to hear a strange "hissing" sound. "Hmmm, that's odd," I thought to myself as I headed into the kitchen. Well, to make a long story short, my pizza was (for lack of a better word) melting. The crust had sagged down through the oven grates while cheese, sauce and toppings were dripping on the bottom of the oven; this explained the hissing sound I heard. It also turned out to be the cause of the three small fires burning merrily in my oven. Well, the pizza was salvaged... but just barely. I have no idea how I got it out the oven with getting horribly burned, but I somehow managed. However, the blackened pepperonis had fused to the bottom of the oven... and they were pissed.

Just the other day, I decided to try my luck again and make another pizza. This time, I figured I'd be "smart" about it (yes, the quotes are intentional, for reasons you'll soon see). To condradict the "melting" problem I'd had before, I laid aluminum foil over the grate in the oven and laid the pizza directly on top of it. Why not? People wrap potatoes in foil all the time and put them in the oven, so I knew this would work out perfectly fine. Right? Right...???

WRONG. Several minutes after the pizza went in, I noticed some curious dark smoke wafting into the living room. When I went in to investigate, I found a rather disburbing scene. The oven was belching more black smoke than my deceased, Lucky Strike smoking grandmother, God rest her soul. The charred pepperonis from the previous pizza were once again ablaze at the bottom of the oven. As for the new pizza, it was sitting quietly on top of the aluminum foil; but it looked NOTHING like the pizza I had put in to bake a few short minutes before. The pepperonis were curled and singed, but the crust remained doughy and cold. Even worse, the entire pizza had somehow taken on a metallic sheen, like it was trying to fuse with the foil and create a new species... or maybe a Robo-Pizza, or whatever. It was fucking bizarre. The cheese actually had a silvery look to it! I'm not sure how that happened exactly, but it didn't look too appetizing. I like plenty of shit on my pizza; pepperoni is fine, as are mushrooms, ham, sausage... hell, even the occasional green pepper doesn't bug me. But I must say, I've never thought of aluminum as a suitable pizza topping...

So now, my pizza is ruined, I have a fire to deal with and the entire apartment is engulfed in black smoke. I have no idea why the smoke alarm never went off, but I was really glad when it didn't. (Heh, that's not a sentiment that you see every day, is it? "Thank God my smoke alarm isn't working properly!") Needless to say, I went to work without having lunch.

By now you're probably wondering why I told you this story. Well, that incident was one of the highlights of my week, which should tell you just exactly what kind of week it's been.

And HEY, Red Baron people! You assholes owe me a fucking pizza... and a clean oven, too.