So…everyone wants to know the story of how I broke my hand this week. Here goes. Pardon my slow typing (Shh. I know. Siri is typing this.)

We are calling this “The Lasagna Incident.”

As you may know, I love to cook. I decided to try my hand (no pun intended) at a White Lasagna with roasted veggies and a mushroom-nutmeg crème sauce.

I assembled it masterfully. It was a thing of beeee-yooooo-teee! I was giddy with excitement and I may have been squealing with delight; a sound that most of my critters found annoying enough to growl at me. (They also hate when I sing my medley of Whitney Houston’s greatest B-sides. Yes, I have been bitten.)

Into the oven, it went. It baked for the required time and I opened the oven to remove the foil and crisp the top. Life was good…very good.

Alexa beeped at me (Siri only does dictation. Alexa is the brains behind this operation. Except when it comes to answering questions on Vern Troyer. She is always short with me.) and told me the time was up. It was time to let the lasagna rest. I went to open the oven door again….but…but this time the door handle came completely off.

I was actually left holding the handle, minus the oven door. The two screws that secure the handle also hold together the various panels of the door. The glass front crashed to the floor with the insulation and a metal piece. Pigs yelped. Dogs barked. Cats looked on indifferently. Whitney Houston remained silent.

However, the main meat of the oven door, the part that seals shut and is spring -loaded, slammed back into the oven. Animals fled to their various Safe Rooms and latched the latches and locked the locks.

MY LASAGNA!

My lasagna was about to be trapped and all my Mario Batali glory was about to become like a Philly bridge on I-95. (Mario has a different hands story. I am pretty sure that “Incident” does not involve lasagna. But hey, maybe it does. Who am I to judge?)

Summoning my inner Anthony Bourdain, I grabbed the two protruding screws in an attempt to pull open this creamy, crusty crematorium.

And….

SHIT! Those bad boys were really friggin’ hot.

I yelped. I barked. I growled.

Then, the adjacent soapstone countertop said something like “Smooth move, Ex-Lax!”

I punched it… and Final Score: Countertop 1, Brian 0.

—-

Just so you can rest at ease, my wife and her massive brain, came over with oven mitts and opened the door. The lasagna was saved. Just remember though that even if she is the hero here, her massive brain makes it impossible to find cute hats that fit.

The lasagna was wonderful, by the way.

And, unlike my hand, it was even better the next day.

So now I sit with a broken hand, waiting to find out if I will receive a cast. No idea. Doc said I need to be left-handed until I hear from the specialist. I’m going to be in NYC this weekend so I will need to activate my other middle finger.

I am practicing as Siri writes.

Mr. Pickles is getting a whole barrage of them right now.