The Tale of the Petrified Pizza

I would like to preface this post with a couple of comments regarding what I expected to see and why upon my first visit to Wayne's home. First off I knew he had lived there for over 10 years at that time so I was certain that the house would be settled and decorated and gently lived in since he basically lived there alone for several years. Second, he is a Boy Scout. Literally... he is an Eagle Scout since the age of 17 and has been an adult leader for over 30 years now.

Also, anyone that has ever met Wayne would probably agree that he is quite fastidious about his appearance. He has such a baby face and is clean shaven (most of the time), his clothing always looks perfectly pressed and clean with out any stains. I am not sure how this happens as I don't believe he even owned an iron before I moved in and I certainly do not iron, although I do own one (that would be my inner Roseanne coming out)! He does not drink, smoke or cuss and he does not wear jeans... EVER... I mean he does not own a pair of jeans and never has...oh and he always has his shirts tucked in. I will go off on a bit of a tangent here; since he does not wear jeans it does limit his wardrobe. He wears Dickies work pants when working or doing dirty jobs around the house and of course dress pants then for all other activities (unless it is a scouting function then of course he wears the official BSA scout pants or shorts) but always, always, always has shirts tucked in, including t-shirts and I am a bit embarrassed to say, sweatshirts at one time too! I remember the first time I saw him with his scout sweatshirt tucked into his Dockers! I about fell over laughing, I know that was mean but it was very silly looking and I was not giggling alone. When we started dating I told him that I would not be seen in public with him if he insisted on tucking in that damn sweatshirt. He has not done it since.

So getting back to why my expectations of his home were as they were... my first impression of him was that he was a neat freak. I could not have been more wrong. I really wasn't kidding when I spoke of the house looking like the beginning of a  Hoarders episode.This discovery brought out my inner June Cleaver and I wanted to make a nice home for us, so after I tackled the front room I then moved on to the kitchen...  Now my husband is not a heavy man but you can easily see that he hasn't missed too many meals. He cooks too. In fact he cooked our Thanksgiving Day meal that year (and every year since, along with Christmas and Easter dinner). So I fully expected to walk into a fully stocked, clean, organized kitchen. Again this was my mindset prior to my arrival the day before... Dear LORD the kitchen had not been updated since the late 1950's! The oven, celery green, which we still have and use, has a sticker on the back giving the manufacture date of 1956.

If the decor wasn't enough of a shock I found the cupboards were stocked with canned goods and baking ingredients so old I had to throw them away.  I could not see the counter tops initially because they were covered in empty, Happy Joe's pizza boxes. When I went the refrigerator I was pleasantly surprised that it did not take long to clean it out, as it was filled with half-eaten pizza in Happy Joe's pizza boxes. I cannot even remember how many boxes I found in there. Most of the pizza was unrecognizable because it was so old. I could have filled a recycling bin with all the pizza boxes I found that day! The next step was to clean the stove top and the oven. Being that it was such an old relic, there is no self cleaning option and although it was a top of line stove in it's day, many of the features such as a programmable start and end time, did not work. But I cleaned my little heart out, removing all the knobs and soaking them scrubbing around the burners with a toothbrush. I even used a toothpick to clean the grease from the numbers on the knobs. Then I opened the oven.... (cue the music from the shower scene in Psycho) I don't believe the oven had EVER been cleaned. As if the horror of the filthy racks and bottom pan weren't enough there was a pan of something in there. I was not sure what it was at first but I using my powers of reasoning, pizza box themed decor and it was on a round metal pizza pan I came to realize it was PETRIFIED PIZZA! After I had ascertained the origins of my find int the oven I was pretty much done and I decided to go back to embracing my inner Roseanne, and save the oven cleaning for another day. Needless to say we went out for supper that night and we did not get pizza!