Too Many Lasagnas in the Freezer

There are too many lasagnas in the freezer. Dad and I don’t know what to do. Sure, we try to eat our way through them as the weeks go on, but too many kind people are stopping by unannounced. Dad had to buy a chest freezer to keep up. Just as we finish one, another three show up at the door. It’s not only lasagna being left behind either. There’s casseroles and curries, pies and soups—every meal you can think of that freezes well. How they keep piling up for us we don’t know, but they do. You can’t blame people for being thoughtful, I guess. And Mum would’ve done the same if another family was in our position, so we don’t mind too much. It’s just getting out of hand. Most evenings Dad stands there explaining that we really are fine on food. But family friends can be quite insistent about this kind of thing, especially when they don’t know what to say. We’re at the point where we can’t tell what’s in them anymore. Most aren’t labeled and have frosted over, so they’re just a series of browny-red blocks. You never know what you’re going to get when you put one in the microwave. ‘We’ve got no choice but to turn people away,’ Dad says. ‘Good idea,’ I say. ‘Or we could pretend we’re not home. Make it look like we’ve skipped town.’ ‘Also a good option,’ Dad says. ‘Better yet, we could fake our own deaths. Disappear for good. Then they’d leave us alone.’ We think about this for some time. Then I say, ‘But imagine all the lasagnas Petar would be bombarded with at his university flat? Losing a mother is bad enough, but a dad and brother too? The whole community would be involved. He’d be crushed by the weight of frozen food.’ ‘You’re right, imagine,’ Dad says, shaking his head before muttering something to himself. We consider the pros and cons of selling the house and moving cities entirely, or turning off the power, but can’t bring ourselves to do either. Instead, we decide on a plan. We’ll pass on our frozen meals to unsuspecting neighbors. ‘We could blend in with one of the kids on their paper round,’ Dad says. He explains it would be like an added extra, one brochure and one frozen dinner left in every letterbox. ‘But what if people think we’re trying to poison them?’ I ask. ‘How will we get random people to trust us?’ ‘Don’t forget I was once a door-to-door salesman,’ Dad says. ‘I’ll wear a suit and provide practical demonstrations. Matua is full of elderly people who shouldn’t be using their ovens anyway.’ Luckily Dad and I are of a similar build, so I can wear one of his suits as well. In fact, I’m the spitting image of him in my matching shoes and tie. ‘Even with two of us, it’ll still take a while to get rid of them,’ I say. ‘Oh yes, I suspect it’ll take days, weeks even’ he says, ‘but we have to take it seriously. We’re the only ones who can stop this taking over the whole house.’ Dad fills as many containers as he can into a sack. Then he briefs me on the strategy (which streets are mine, which are his, how to not take rejections personally and all that). It’s the most he’s spoken to me in a while. I’d prefer to be doing something else with my evenings, but at least the tupperware invasion has brought us closer together. Until now, we’ve been lost in our private worlds, eating in silence every night at the dinner table. Now we have something to do as we set off down the street. So similar together in our suits, we might be mistaken as the same person.

Tim Gregc

Tim Grgec is a writer and public servant based in Te Whanganui-a-tara | Wellington. His first book, All Tito’s Children, was published by Te Herenga Waka Press in 2021.