The Way to His Heart

I love frozen pizza. I haven't tried many gourmet pizzas, but I can honestly say that I have yet to find a pizza anywhere (I even had it in Finland once--it was okay, except the ones with shrimp or tuna on top were just weird) that I like better than a frozen Totinos. For me, their flavor and flaky crust are worth the thousand-calorie intake.

After our wedding reception, my husband (let's call him Frank) and I stopped by a grocery store to buy frozen pizza (sadly, we didn't get Totinos) to eat together the next day after church. We were driving Frank's old 1989 Ford pick-up truck with my belongings from my twenty years of life loaded into the back. We had a three-hour drive ahead of us.

On my first day to Sunday school in my new town, I was introduced as [Franks]'s friend. The bishop spoke up from the back and said, "I think that's his wife." Because Frank is NOT the chatty type, his best friend (a coworker) and the bishop were the only people in his town he had told about the wedding (and the only reason he told the bishop was so he could get his temple marriage pass). I blushed and tried my best not to look like I had not had enough sleep.

(You may be wondering what happened to the honeymoon. We went to Disneyland a couple of weeks later. It wasn't crowded, so we went on a bunch of rides and had a great time.)

After church as we were eating our pizza, we noticed it had a strange taste. We had already consumed almost half of the first one when I looked at the bottom side and saw that it was very MOLDY.

~Shudder~

We threw the pizza away and I went to the fridge and cupboard to see what else there was to eat. I may need to point out that Frank was a bachelor just two days before. The fridge had a few condiments and ONE hot dog. The cupboard had ONE can of corn. That was it. I also should include that as Mormons, we don't shop on Sunday. Even if we did, the two grocery stores within forty miles were closed on Sundays.

In good wifely manner, I asked Frank how he would like his hot dog cooked. He said he always heats them in the microwave. I asked, "How long?" and he said, "I don't know. I've never eaten just one before." Then he guessed about two minutes, so I put it in while I found a pan to heat up the corn. In my mind, I thanked my mother-in-law for the bag of homemade jam cookies she had sent with us.

The microwave beeped its conclusion. I opened the microwave (oven*) door to see smoke and one very petrified hot dog. Even as hungry as we were, it was not edible and so joined the mossy pizza in the garbage can.

As we sat down to our meal of corn and cookies, we couldn't help but giggle. The next day we went to the store together after Frank got home from work. I piled staples into the cart (flour, sugar, honey, rice, fruits and vegetables, pasta, eggs, and laundry supplies), and some olives, cheese, pickles, chocolate chips, sausage, and (of course) hot dogs. Frank had been away from his mother's home cooking for ten long months.

I'll never forget the look of bliss on his face.

*The other night, Frank was commenting
on how everyone calls this a microwave, when it is
really a microwave oven that uses microwaves to
cook food. While I already knew this, I like the
idea of calling it the microwave oven
instead of the microwave.

I think I'll call it Mo for short.