WEST SALEM, WIS — A local Republican father is claiming Wednesday that no food should be consumed at the dinner table if it isn’t finished by his arbitrary deadline of 5:30 pm.

William Ranchskin, a father of two, said the argument began earlier in the week over the choice of dinner.

“We all wanted pizza,” Ranchskin said, “It’s funny, you know… we all agreed that we wanted pizza. It’s just how we want to go about getting that pizza is what we always fight about.”

His wife, Kaptive Ranchskin and their daughters Saev-Mi and Plea-Selp wanted to make their own pizza from scratch, including the dough and sauce.

“The kids really wanted a family cooking night,” Kaptive said, “but their father thinks it would take too long and he gets awfully cranky if he doesn’t eat right after his shift stacking pallets at Menards.”

“It’s going to take too long!” William said. “So I was like, why don’t I just get something from the Kwik Trip hot spot? It’s the same thing, minus all that messy, time consuming, endearing family memory creating crap, right? I mean, am I wrong? No! Of course I’m not and I’ll never be.”

After it came to a boiling point, the kids insisted and William caved… with a caveat.

“I said fine! But if anything isn’t finished by 5:30 pm on the dot, we’re throwing it out!” William insisted.

With this new rule potentially in place, this threw the stability of dinner in question. Kaptive does not get back from work until 4:30 pm, and with both kids tied up in virtual classes all day as well, it’s likely the three of them will not get a start on the pizza until 4:45 at the earliest.

“The dough itself is going to take at least 30 minutes to make,” Kaptive added, “And that’s not including the time it will take to arrange the other ingredients and bake it in the oven.”

Though their family has had literally no precedent for throwing out food if it isn’t done on time, the fate of the Ranchskin’s Wednesday night dinner still hangs in the balance. Experts say it will come down to the battleground ingredient of pizza sauce.

“Good pizza sauce takes time to make right,” Kaptive said, “but – big picture-wise – we may just have to suck it up and go with store-bought if we don’t want to starve.”

Early Wednesday morning, William also suggested he may take this dispute to the “supreme court”, which is what he calls his work friend Dave.