Third Time’s a Charm?

 The smoke billowed out of the oven like dark clouds escaping from the stack on top of a coal train.  I didn’t think it was possible to mess up baking a pizza, but my dumb ass managed to do it…twice! 

The pizzas were both store bought so cooking them wasn’t exactly rocket science.  There were clear instructions written on the back of the box.  I followed them just as they were written.  However, pizza number one began to set off the smoke alarm after only half of the recommended cooking time.  I pulled the charred slab of dough out of the oven and tossed it on the stove where it shattered violently into crumbly pieces.  Clearly I had overcooked it, but I couldn’t figure out why since the temperature was set at the right number and the timer wasn’t even close to being done.  

Pizza number two, which I tried making two days later, was set to the same recommended temperature, but for half the time of pizza number one.  A few minutes before the timer was set to go off, I went into the kitchen to check on my dinner.  To my extreme frustration, the kitchen was again filling with smoke.  I pulled the pizza out of the oven and this time set it down on the stove.  The toppings were shriveled up like a dehydrated fish out of water and the bottom of the dough was charcoal black and as hard as a diamond in an ice storm.  I was furious and befuddled. 

I didn’t find out the cause of this disaster until a month later when my girlfriend and I discovered that the temperature knob on her oven was incorrectly installed.  As it turns out, the oven was a least fifty degrees hotter than the number on the knob!  The bright side is at least it wasn’t my fault and I’m not as bad a cook as I originally thought.