In Crust We Trust.. Even when it’s cold, awkward, or eaten… | by Keiran, MD | Write Your World | Oct, 2025

Written sometime in 2023.

There are very few things in life that remain consistently good.
Pizza is one of them.
Even when it’s bad, still pizza. It’s still good.
Even when it’s cold and slightly sad in a greasy box at 2 AM, still pizza. It’s still good.
Even when someone insists on pineapple… still pizza. But I f**king hate you. But we’re still good.

Pizza is what you eat when you’re celebrating, or when you’re failing but want to pretend you’re not.
It’s the food of birthdays, breakups, get-togethers, research paper deadlines, in-service exam reviews, post-duty recoveries, and I-can’t-cook-but-I-deserve-comfort-anyway nights.

There’s something deeply philosophical about how pizza asks you to choose just one slice at a time.
Of course, you could take more, but you won’t, at least not yet.
You tell yourself you’ll just have one. Maybe two.
But you already know how this ends.
You’re going to sit there, contemplative, pretending you’re pausing between slices like a person with restraint.
But the cheese whispers, you’ll be back.

Pizza doesn’t rush you.
It waits. Patient. Lukewarm. Still ready to love you.

And the crust. Well it depends.

If the dough is good, then it’s a humble, edible handle of a joy-filled triangle.
People toss it aside like it’s packaging.
But the crust is the closing paragraph of the slice. You don’t skip the ending. That’s bad storytelling. And it absolutely won’t make any sense.

Now, if it is cheese-stuffed, then that’s not the ending. That is the brilliant introduction.

I’ve had pizza with friends. With colleagues. And with near-strangers… like this afternoon, at this Chief Residents’ meeting. Our bosses brought out pizza, for sharing, for camaraderie, to lighten up the mood. A little reward after an hour of solid work.

We all take a slice. No one knows where to look. No one makes eye contact. It’s amusingly painful.

We’re all facing slightly different directions, like confused mannequins in a medical-themed exhibit. The chosen few, plucked from our departments to lead and represent. But what we got here is collection of awkward doctors, silently chewing.

Someone coughs. Someone peels cheese off the crust like it’s a task that requires full concentration. Someone bolted for the door, pizza in hand, muttering, “patient! OR! Induction!”

I’m done with my slice. I sip my soda. I got up. Looked out the window. Just needed something to look at.

It’s quiet. Too quiet for a room with this much carbs. A room full of allegedly competent, overachieving adults …sharing a pizza …in complete social paralysis.

I will order a box of pizza when I get home tonight. To make up for this. Maybe all of us in this meeting should. Because the best slices are the ones you eat alone, with an ice-cold bottle of beer, legs crossed on the couch, watching a show you’re not really paying attention to, thinking, Maybe this is what self-care actually means.