Pizza pointers

"You spread it like this," my dad says pressing the pizza dough into the circular metal pan. "You want to make sure that you patch the holes. See here?" He says pointing to a small tear where the dough had stretched too far and the grey tray peaked through.

"Spread it like this. You want to press down these big guys over here," he motions referring to patches where the dough was an uneven thickness.

I do what he says and try not to sigh. We are baking together. He is giving me baking tips, and I can bake most things better than everyone in my family except my mother. He makes comments just to make them, tips that anyone would know. Don't spread the sauce unevenly, don't concentrate the spices in the middle, don't put on too many onions, and add enough toppings, but not too many.

It would be like me giving Michael Jordan basketball pointers, me telling Shakespeare how to write in iambic pentameter. I am not the Bob Dylan of out of the box, kraft pizza kit making, but I know enough.

I wonder why he is trying so hard to be a father today. It's as if he's making up for all the direction that he missed out on giving in the last twenty years, in one afternoon.