A Moment of Silence, Please

Last Sunday morning, I woke up feeling a mixture of hunger and inspiration.

Since we are hungry by the time we leave church on Sunday, one of two things will take place: We will either eat out or we will end up at home starved-stupid.

Lucky for me though, aforementioned inspiration was upon me, so I decided to make our meal before leaving for church so that all we had to do when we came home was to heat it up.

I made two pizzas. But not just any old pizzas. Homemade, from scratch, herbs in the dough, roll-it-out-by-hand pizzas. One was a meat and veggie lovers. I chopped and diced all sorts of ham and onions, peppers, pepperoni, and whatever else I could find in the fridge. The other was my favorite, barbecue chicken. BBQ sauce, chicken, almonds, pineapples. I lightly baked the crusts before adding all the toppings so that our waiting time would be at a minimum.

During church, I mentioned to Jon how amazingly scrumptious those crusts smelled while baking that morning and how hungry I was. He asked where I had put the pizzas to keep them safe from the crazy Hazel.

But there was nothing to fear, I assured him. Not only did I put Hazel in her cage, I used an additional lock to make sure she could not open the door of her cage again. Also, just in case she somehow managed to escape, she would clearly NOT be able to get the pizzas because I put both of them in the oven and firmly shut the door. Nothing to fear, I confidently assured him while wiping the ladylike line of drool from the corner of my mouth.

At this point I would just like to add that I was still, even while salivating and discussing pizza with my husband, I was still (I repeat) listening to every word of the sermon...

After church, Jon had a meeting and clean-up, so it was even later than usual when we left, but I was overconfident and bordering on the edge of cocky, I was.

As I opened the front door, the first thing I saw was Hazel's cage.

Empty.

The next thing I noticed was that there were no dogs to be found.

Again, a bad sign.

From there it was all a blur. Apparently Hazel had escaped from the cage and sniffed out the pizzas in the oven. Somehow, some way, she opened the oven and pulled out both racks, along with both pizzas.

Please pause for a moment of silence with me.

Thank you. It means a lot.

At this point, I was frozen in the kitchen, unable to move, scream, curse, or cry. As I looked around, I noticed that after she had gotten the oven door open, it served as a little stool of sorts to help her up to the counter. After she made her way to the counter, she found and dumped all sorts of interesting things, including a pot of leftover chicken noodle soup from the previous night. The entire kitchen floor was a mess of soup and muddy pawprints from playing in it.

Add to that the new talent that Hazel his discovered, peeing whenever she has done something horribly wrong, and the kitchen floor was a mess.

Sooooo,

Today is Saturday and again I am pondering the lunch for tomorrow.

Sandwiches, anyone?