Let’s set the scene, shall we? You’ve gone out to dinner somewhere really nice, or at least really great-tasting. The food is calling out to you, but you stop yourself when you’ve had just enough to feel immobile for the rest of the ride. What if you have some of this delicious food left? Do you leave it there?

If you do, fancy pants bourgeoisie, you need to remember that there are starving kids in your very own backyard. Remember? For God’s sake, let them out or take home scraps. Jeez.

Assuming you opt for the to-go box, you’ve probably experienced the kind of food sadness I’m feeling right now. Maybe, in a rush to put on coats and race home for lovemaking (I’ve seen that happen in movies), you left the box at the restaurant. Maybe you ook the box to the car and placed it out of your view, then left it lonely in the summer heat for the night? Maybe you even got it home, but you never made plans to eat it. The next time you clean the refrigerator, there it sits. A molding reminder of a delicious meal you once loved.

Food that you broke up with. Your relationship was incomplete, and yet you left it there. Jilted.

My pain is from a similar story, except I did so many things right and one thing completely wrong. My clumsiness was a factor that I didn’t consider.

Mrs and I had some of the most delicious deep-dish pizza outside of actual Chicago deep dish pizza (Giordanno’s FTW) and with the addition of salad bar and breadsticks, we couldn’t finish this baked gift from the heavens in one sitting. We opted for 2 boxes. Each box would be lovingly packed with 3 slices of pizza for the next day’s lunch. Oh, I dreamt of the flavor as I packed each box.

An hour’s drive back home and I remembered the boxes. I stacked one atop the other and placed them on the roof of the car. I added Ms. E’s sippy-cup to that stack, for convenience. As I checked to make sure there was nothing left in the car that absolutely had to go in, I saw the sippy-cup tipping off the boxes. As I moved to catch the cup, disaster struck.

Both styrofoam boxes tipped from the roof and somehow hurtled past my hands faster than I could realize what was happening. On their light-speed trip to the ground level, both boxes somehow came open and spilled their entire contents. All 6 pieces of heavenly delight landed on the sandy, gravel-filled driveway behind the car. Four of those six pieces landed face down. The two that landed face-up were rescued.

I picked up each piece in disbelief, discarding them when I saw the grit of stones and dirt meshed in the sauce and cheese. Even in the dark, it was evident. I had committed murder. It was not the pizza’s time. I was in a position of caretaker, and I had failed miserably. Saving those two survivors, I dusted off the bottom and quickly bedded them in one of the somehow destroyed boxes that laid among the italian food-corpses.

Yes. I saved them. They will be eaten at lunch service today, and the void left in my hungry stomach from that missing third piece will go unfilled as my punishment.

I do not ask your pardon, but instead your forgiveness. We’ve all felt this pain, but mine was a homicide of my own mishandling.

Have you ever suffered such a loss?