Just Desserts

Note: this is actually a story from two years ago that I just found buried. I see that I never posted it. It needs to be shared, even though it isn’t exactly the best follow-on to a post about healthy eating, there is still a lesson to be learned.

Around 7:15 or so, my wife announces that she wants something yummy. I’m always up for something yummy. I suggest pie, and she says that’s exactly what she was in the mood for. I offer to run and get one if she’ll give Michael a bath.

So off I go to Marie Callendar’s, taking with me the tin from our previous pie. I pick out a beautiful banana cream pie, one of our favorites, and head home in record time.

I come in the front door, pie in hand, and hear my wife calling down to my stepdaughter: “Could you bring some paper towels?” Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. Stepdaughter responds with “I don’t know where they are!” This girl lives in an alternate universe, I think, because despite the fact that she’s lived in this house for four years, the only things she is certain to locate are the TV remote and the refrigerator.

I didn’t bother to point them out because according to my wife’s tone, time was of the essence, so I quickly whipped open the pantry closet and got a roll out. Stupid me, I didn’t put the pie down first. As I’m tossing the roll upstairs, I drop the pie box. It does a full somersault and lands right side up.

“Shoot!” (or something like that) I shouted, and inspected the pie. “Ow!” my wife calls from upstairs, having been beaned with a poorly thrown roll of paper towels.

The pie is okay – shaken up but otherwise edible. I am incredibly angry with myself for being so careless and I vow to not do that again.

After explaining the whole scenario to my wife and then demonstrating to my stepdaughter where certain key items are in the house she’s lived in for four years, I put the pie in the refrigerator.

Fast-forward to pie time, after Michael is safely ensconced in his bed.

I eagerly extract two plates and two forks, and then reach into the refrigerator to withdraw the lovely pie.

Somehow, and I’m really not sure how, I managed to drop it again.

This time, it does not fare so well. The box splits open, the pie slips out and most of it spills out into the refrigerator, coating the sides, the vegetable crisper, the meat drawer, the grill on the front, my knee, my socks and the floor.

Needless to say, I went slightly insane with self-anger. I picked up the pie tin, scooped the remnants onto the two plates, and then grabbed twenty seven squares of paper towels to clean up the mess I’d made, all the while muttering oaths at myself.

Right then, my wife said exactly what I was thinking: “Maybe God doesn’t want you to have that pie.”

Later on she pointed out how hilariously funny it was to watch me angrily throwing the last edible bits of the pie on our plates. I’m sure I made quite the spectacle.

Anyway… the pie was really good.