Things that didn't go as planned

My pizza yesterday was a disaster. The dough didn't survive two weeks in the freezer as well as I might have hoped, and it didn't rise. Not only that, but it stuck to the pan. Not just a little, but a lot. We had to scrape the whole thing off in inch-long shreds. I've never had that problem with my pizza pan before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

I am ashamed to say I didn't take it well. I was feeling pretty crappy, and the pizza was supposed to make me feel better. It wouldn't be a stretch to call my reaction "throwing a tantrum." The s.o., who always knows how to make me feel better, drove into Greensboro to pick up some Chinese food. Half an hour later I was stuffing my face with fried tofu bits and crab rangoons, placated.

Meanwhile, the talk of the town is the failed robbery of a country store several miles north of us. Two teenagers from Athens barged in at closing time a couple of nights ago and demanded that the owner and his wife hand over the till. Trouble was, the kids were jittery and trigger-happy. One of them fired his gun at the store owner, but the gun jammed. In the moment of "Wha--?" that ensued, the owner and his wife had time to grab their respective pistols from under the counter, and they returned fire.

It's really a pity that the store had no video cameras, because the melee that followed must have been something. The teen who'd fired the first (failed) shot ran crashing through the aisles, firing actual bullets this time, until he was killed. The other robber had no gun, so he hid in a back corner and threw glass condiment bottles at the proprietors until he, too, was shot down. The entire store was spattered with blood and soy sauce.

The Oglethorpe County Sheriff ruled the shootings self-defense. The robbers were identified and turned out to have lengthy criminal records back in town.

All I can figure is that the kids thought what a lot of us think about rural folks: that they're naive and unsuspecting, an easy mark. But when it's ten or more miles to the next storefront, store owners generally don't take chances.

But in my current dextromethorphan haze, this is too much for me to think about. I can barely even get my head together enough to wander into the kitchen and get some Chinese leftovers.