Poem on Fathers and Pizza (2002 one used in Writer's Almanac) - Garrison Keillor daily calendar

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"Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts" by Mark Halliday


The connection between divorced fathers and pizza crusts

is understandable. The divorced father does not cook

confidently. He wants his kid to enjoy dinner.

The entire weekend is supposed to be fun. Kids love

pizza. For some reason involving soft warmth and malleability


kids approve of melted cheese on pizza

years before they will tolerate cheese in other situations.

So the divorced father takes the kid and the kid's friend

out for pizza. The kids eat much faster than the dad.

Before the dad has finished his second slice,


the kids are playing a video game or being Ace Ventura

or blowing spitballs through straws, making this hail

that can't quite be cleaned up. There are four slices left

and the divorced father doesn't want them wasted,

there has been enough waste already; he sits there


in his windbreaker finishing the pizza. It's good

except the crust is actually not so great--

after the second slice the crust is basically a chore--

so you leave it. You move on the next loaded slice.

Finally there you are amid rims of crust.

All this is understandable. There's no dark conspiracy.

Meanwhile the kids are having a pretty good time

which is the whole point. So the entire evening makes

clear sense. Now the divorced father gathers

the sauce-stained napkins for the trash and dumps them


and dumps the rims of crust which are not

corpses on a battlefield. Understandability

fills the pizza shop so thoroughly there's no room

for anything else. Now he's at the door summoning the kids

and they follow, of course they do, he's a dad.