Julie is coming by tonight for dinner. I call her on the phone to confirm, "Willie's Dawgs (a hot dog place on 5th ave) for dinner, yes?"

Tam yells from the other room, "I want a Hot Carl!"

I reply, "You may want to keep that sort of thing to yourself."

Of course, Willie's Dawgs serves a "Carlos" that is a hot dog with cheddar, salsa, jalapeno peppers on a challah roll.

A "Hot Carl" is a whole other thing, and I'm pretty sure Willie does not serve them, pretty sure.

We were at Julie's parent's house in Jamestown for the New Year. There is a chain of stores up in Rhode Island called the The Christmas Tree Shops (CTS) (warning: link contains blaring Christmas Tree Shops jingle). The CTS is a discount seconds and irregular product heaven, or hell depending on your perspective. Oddly enough, they don't seem to sell Christmas Trees, at least any that I have seen. We always go to the CTS while in Rhode Island regardless of my never ending diatribes involving my disdain for the store. While shopping at the CTS Julie spotted a pizza stone for three dollars. At this point I was done with the CTS. I was done with shopping, and I was done, fucking done, with buying three dollar items that we just don't need. This did not go over well with Julie and Tamara who felt that a pizza stone was exactly what we needed. I put my foot down, and basically dragged them out of the store without the pizza stone.

This is not the end gentle reader. The topic of the lost pizza stone was brought back into conversation at least once an hour for the rest of the weekend, and on occasion was followed by a plea to return to the CTS and purchase the much coveted stone. I was regaled with stories of the pizza making, blissful world we could be living in if we only had that stone. But I had said my piece, and luckily for me the CTS was in Newport, which was a toll bridge ride away, and just enough deterrent to keep us from returning to the CTS on a whim. We drove back to New York a couple of days later, not without many a mention of the stone and the easily obtainable pizza nirvana that was almost within our grasp.

A few days later, Charlotte, Julie's sister who had come to Jamestown and had stayed a few days longer, stopped by our house on her way back to Georgetown. I passed by Tam's work on the way home that night to to say hello and discuss our dinner options for that evening. Tamara mentioned that Charlotte was going to make pizza. I paused, "What?" "She's gonna make pizza." Tamara repeated. Immediately I saw this as a ploy, a way to one up the scrooge of pizzas stones, a way to show me what a world with home made pizza could be like and how much of a fool I had been that I wouldn't accept this new and better way of life. I responded, "You guys are trying to make a pizza fool of me. That pizza she's making is a big fat round manipulation." Tam just smiled at me. I was standing in the waiting room of the veterinary clinic where she works, and I noticed that the patients, and their owners, were staring at a raving idiot. I smiled half heartedly and eased my way out the door.

What I didn't realize as I walked home was that this was not a ploy to show me what I fool I was for not letting them buy the stone. Charlotte had bought the stone and brought it to New York for Tam and Julie. Julie had called Charlotte and asked her to stop at the CTS and buy the forbidden stone. When Charlotte pulled it out of the shopping bag I was stunned. This was a coup d'�tat. The very fabric of our simple apartment empire was tearing apart before my eyes. I had ruled against the stone. I had passed judgment and laid down the law. There would be no stone. And yet, here it was. The stone had materialized as if in a bad dream, and it laid there mocking me in my own kitchen. I thought Charlotte was an ally. She hated the CTS as much, maybe more than I, and yet she had brought the stone. She had help thrust the stone upon me. Et tu Charlotte?

Julie and Charlotte saw the anger in my eyes when they unveiled the pizza stone, and I saw the fear in their faces. They stepped back. And yet, in their eyes of fear I saw my shame. I saw clearly for the first time. I saw what I had become. I was a madman, a lunatic filled with a hate that had tainted my very soul. My heart had turned, dare I say, to stone. In an instant I had seen what must be done. I would turn my reign of terror into a legacy of hope. I would turn my cold stone heart into a warm cheese pie with sausage and olives. I would make a pie. I would make a pie so stuffed with love and compassion for pizza stones everywhere that one single slice would fill the masticator with a hope and joy for pizza like none they had ever known. I would make a pie.