The Most Expensive Frozen Pizza. Ever.

As far as embarrassing goes, I suppose this is probably the most ridiculous of my humiliating stories from recent history in this life.

It takes the pie, the pizza pie!

2020 was difficult for everyone. There is no denying this fact.

December of 2020 posed a particularly lonely outlook for most people who were accustomed to large family gatherings and midnight church services, those that looked forward to potlucks of food, family traditions and festivities. There is just something about mindlessly and ferociously tearing at copious amounts of Saran Wrap with oven mitts on, amirite?

I however having grown away from the larger family get together events many years earlier in favor of a more private spiritual celebration of the Winter Saturnalia, had grown fully accustomed to making my solo noel, an awesome time.

On December 24th of 2020, I went to work as planned I have been a bowling clerk and novice mechanic since I got home from China the second time. It is my sidegig and most days my own form of therapy, it checks boxes all the therapists dig, physical, mental, etcetera.

So, just as my parents and family prepared for Christmas Eve dinner and got ready for their altered church services, I was off to have time with those of us who shy away from society and family on the high holidays just like I do...

I got to the bowling alley a little early, it was a decent shift, I even bowled a couple games. Some businesses are slow on holidays, bowling alleys under normal circumstances without a pandemic are usually packed. There are whole families that spend their Turkey time waiting on the bird while bowling...

2020 was a little different though, there’s a pandemic on. Many of the regular families that come every year did not. It was slow, through the entire shift. This was a natural and welcome slowness, a certain validation that my community was taking seriously the dangers of the pandemic at hand. It is cool when the people who surround you care enough to stay away when the time is right.

When I finished my shift, I had a couple of drinks, bowled a few noel frames then I headed home with full intentions on fulfilling all of my plans for the night, which, were not as extravagant. I was prepared for a quiet night at home alone with RexRyan my cuddly mastiff, we would have a pizza enjoy the blankets and watch some movies, then off to bed.

On the way home I stopped at the gas station to fulfill my Christmas plans. This was no normal gas station I stopped at, this was one of those gas stations that have both everything you need and everything you do not need but want all in the same stop. They are on whatever thoroughfare you find them. Some places call them Kum and Go's, or Kwik Trips, in some places they are known as Flying Js or Loves, I have even heard them called Buckees before. These fancy gas stops, are the birth of these regrets I bequeath to you just now.

While shopping around at the fancy petro stop I stumbled upon all of the Christmas Eve junk food no person needs, I mindlessly grabbed a pizza as the crowning achievement on my purchase and shuffled to the counter.

I don't have a romantic mate, I have a giant dog for a roommate and a good number of friends that were cutting into turkeys and hams with their own families at that moment. My own family had gone to church and had dinner already, we had plans for the next day.

It dawned on me, as the dreary fellow at the counter, who was clearly working off his own Christmas penance shoved my pizza into the bag. At that moment I knew exactly how extremely paltry were the plans I had conceived for my own personal Christmas Eve 2020.

YOLO, QUARANTINE LYFE!

Stand for nothing, fall for everything, ne'er did I expect to fall to this pizza pie.

I had decided to have a quiet holiday away from others for our safety and my own personal sanity. I picked the pizza with all of the bacon and meats.

You know the one, the pizza that screams heartburn and indigestion, you know the one, you do, we all do. No, American doesn’t know which pizza I grabbed that night. There is no denying it.

I had big plans to watch anything but Christmas movies. I thought about this Pizza plan for hours prior.

When I got home, I immediately turned the oven to 400 degrees.

Yes, I am one of those savages that bakes a pizza directly on the rack in the middle of the oven.

Yes, I am one of those undignified people that uses the included cardboard as the pan to save water, even though I have created a plastic sheath for the landfill. Some might call that half-assed environmentalism.

I use a knife to cut the pizza because as it turns out after 33 years of life, I do not own a pizza cutter.

For perspective on this, I, a 33 year old have acquired through life, a professional photo kit, an extensive art studio, and a pretty swanky amount of kitchen gear. I live in a furnished apartment that I have meticulously built over more than 10 years yet there is no pizza cutter.

I do not own a pizza cutter!

I am half way convinced the pizza gods have chosen the punishment that would ensue because of this fact.

This was a kharmic pizza on a mission.

When that pizza was done, I slid the cardboard underneath. I barely gripped the edge of the pizza and pulled it the rest of the way before plopping it on the counter top and blowing on the tips of my fingers.

Remember, I am an undignified trash person.

I grabbed the giant knife from the butcher's block. I chopped the pizza in half. I then, quartered one of the halves. This is important. This was a cracker crust pizza from a gas station, I only ever cut 4 slices from the whole thing.

A full half and one piece would remain on that counter top for the next 12 hours or so.

Now, I know people that can down whole frozen pizzas in one sitting. I am, unabashedly, one of those people at times, too. This time I only wanted a little bit of pizza to satisfy my fix and to ultimately go to bed.

This plan would not come to fruition.

I do not remember what I was even watching. I can guarantee it was neither It's a Wonderful Life, nor was it A Christmas Story. Somewhere through the second piece of this pizza a chunk seemed to lodge itself in my throat. I stopped paying attention to the television screen at this point.

I pressed on, thinking I could magically dislodge that which was stuck. I ate the third piece of pizza. At this point I could no longer ignore that there was a clear obstruction in my esophagus. I commenced in attempting to remove the pizza on my own.

It should be noted that I live alone which I may have already mentioned. Living alone comes with a base level of common sense that allows a human to instinctively attempt to keep the body alive in the instance of having no other humans around. I did look to my dog for inspiration at this moment. There was no way that he, a 150 pound mastiff would be performing the Heimlich maneuver on his choking Momma. Although, as I looked in his chestnut brown eyes all I could see were flashes of what might happen to him if I were to just croak right there, right then. I persevered.

I panicked a little more, I could breathe but with every breath it felt like that pizza was mere millimetres from entering my lungs and ending it all.

I anxiety brushed my teeth, I cleaned my tongue with the precision of a surgeon hoping desperately to gag enough to get this chunk of pizza out of my throat. It is gross but that third piece of pizza came up but the dislodged chunk did not move.

I chugged hot water, yes, I, the most profound idiot in the village chugged hot water while moderately choking in an attempt to get the pizza out of my throat, very actually risking aspirating and dry drowning on water, alone in my home, on Christmas Eve.

I looked up how to perform the Heimlich on oneself, I immediately attempted such. I was able to get a little bit nudged in such a way that it felt more on the verge of actually going down my throat.

I coughed. Then I coughed. Over my short life I have coughed a lot. This however was no bong rip of a coughing fit this was throat tearing violent coughing to get a cursed bit of cracker crust out of my throat. It did not work.

What was at very least a full hour of coughing the anxiety really set in. My chest was getting sore from trying to get this pizza piece out.

I tried to go to bed, the pizza bit would not let me rest nor would it loosen the grip on my anxiety telling me I was going to die in my sleep on Christmas Eve like the most sad example of humanity in play.

Did you ever watch ER as a kid? I DID.

My mind jumped to some ER doctor stabbing a pen in my throat and performing an emergency tracheotomy.

I resolved. I put on clothes. I looked at my dog and kissed him good bye. If I could drive to the hospital and smoke a cigarette while coughing my whole way there allowing my anxiety full reign to remove the obstruction before I made it to the Hospital, then and only then I would be turning around and coming back home to go to bed. If not by the time I made it to the hospital I would be without insurance checking myself in to get the pizza bolus removed as soon as was humanly possible.

I drove and made it to the hospital unfortunately for me the pizza bolus had also made it to the hospital intact.

I parked the car, shuffled through the frozen lot to the emergency entrance. I was stopped at the door.

The security guard asked me the covid questions. My voice had gone hoarse. When asked if I had a cough I responded with,

“Yes, there is a piece of pizza stuck in my throat.”

I then weakly smiled hoping that might be a golden key to the hospital.

I rasped this answer through 4 more people as I was expedited to the ER.

Once there, I got a bed, and a bunch of docs and nurses who were all so nice.

We tried coughing, we tried more water, we tried some shot in the thigh that felt like I had been punched for days later. Nothing worked. By 4 in the morning another specialist had arrived. This was terrifying. A piece of forsaken pizza had caused what is now 5:45 am emergency endoscopy.

When I woke up I cried, as I apologized for being at the hospital at all during a pandemic. The nurses chuckled as they passed along my weepy regrets back down the chain. How embarrassing this whole ordeal had become.

As it turns out my body under anesthesia went ahead and reflex gagged with two whole tubes down my throat enough that the camera caught sight of the obstruction clearing without much effort at all.

A certain blessing, but remarkably lackluster. My heart hadn’t pounded nervous of the actual procedure as they wheeled me into surgery, my mind was focused on one thing, how much is this going to cost me? The cost of healthcare and emergency care in America alone is terrifying not to mention the pizza frog stuck in my throat.

When I awoke and heard that it was nothing at all, I was ready to go home with my head low. This was going to cost dearly no matter how easy or hard it had been to dislodge that pizza. Mortifying.

I had driven there alone choking and now I would sadly be driving myself home on Christmas Morning in pain. I put my pajamas back on then shuffled out of the hospital. A sore throat, a sore chest, a sore back, a sore leg, for what? For a deceptive bit of cracker crust, that is what.

As I pulled in the driveway I thought how this was going to really be an expensive holiday that I had planned to do on the cheapest of budgets. How much was this $10 trainwreck really going to cost?

I walked in the house, I saw the other half of the pizza puck still uncut staring right at me from the countertop. I said some rather unsavory words in quick succession. I would have made Mr. Samuel L Jackson or Mr. Quintin Tarantino proud with the cascading profanity that effused from my being as I cast this Demon Pizza into the bin and promptly took out the trash. The last thing I said to the pizza was this,

“Goodbye, to the most expensive frozen pizza, I never truly ate.”

As I recovered from the soreness. I reached out to some friends, it seemed crazy to think that this pizza thing could have gone so wrong. I thought of what my tombstone or obituary might have said, there is no limit to the epitaphs that choking to death on pizza might produce. Whether for post-mortem laughs or not, boundless options exist.

What’s the favorite pizza topping of the dead?

Ghost peppers of course!

Days, weeks and a month or two had passed when the first bill arrived. Only $1400 seemed a little short of the mark.

So last week, I was working. The phone rang, I happened to have it in my hand so I answered.

It was the financial office for the hospital, great conversation. I asked the guy about the details and finally asked what is the total for this whole thing.

He responded with, “ Looks like 14 thousand dollars”

I snorty choked on the air I was breathing.

This humiliation, this scourge in punctuation to a terrible year. I am grateful for life but my god, 14 thousand dollars that’s akin to the cost of having a child in the hospital.

14 thousand is two semesters of state college. 14 thousand is a brand new car. 14 thousand is a downpayment on a house. 14 thousand is two around the world airline tickets.

When the debt reapers come for me they will ask where my debts arose, it will be from choking alone on yuletide petrostop pizza.

My Christmas pizza costed more than the Gold, the Frankincense and the Myrrh.

The most expensive frozen pizza. Ever.