Revenge of the Pie

It's about 1:30 a.m. and I am still awake, waiting for my amazing apple pie to come out of the oven. People in my office have been on a collective baking binge recently, and I am joining in with this particular confection to avenge a previous foray into the world of baked goods.

Sometime in October, when we all thought the fall weather might finally descend upon D.C., several of us planned a fall festival for our department, complete with scarves, pie, Schnapps hot chocolate, and pumpkin beer. I love to bake, so I offered to make what I consider to be the greatest apple pie in the history of... well, of pies. My mom has been making it for years, and we are pretty sure that it could kill a man-- really, the amount of butter in the topping shall remain nameless to protect the LDL-impaired. But what it lacks in fat-freedom it makes up for in apply goodness-- eight apples of goodness, to be precise.

Needless to say, I was very excited about this pie. I baked it the night before; the apartment smelled amazing. I left for work early, hoping that I would be able to get a seat on the Metro-- because, seriously, what could be worse than dropping my pie on the Metro?

I walked carefully down the hall, down the elevator, out the front door of the building. At which point I realized it was raining. Grr. But no big deal, right?

I stood in front of the building, under the awning, balancing the best pie ever on one palm and digging through my bag for my umbrella with my free hand. I located the umbrella and began to open it.

"Hmm," I thought, "maybe I should set down the--"

It was one of those moments when you float out of your body and time slows down.

"AAAUGHUUUH!" I didn't really scream so much as this strangled yelping sound escaped from me. I like to think my choked cry was drowned out by the slurp of pie flopping onto the sidewalk-- concurrent with a single crunch of glass, of course. Because I had just a little too much hubris to get the pre-made pie crust in the little aluminum pie plate. Nah, who needs that?

Apparently, a spaz like me.

I debated my options-- run away and get on the train, run to Safeway and bake a new pie (I would probably only be about two hours late to work-- I really thought about this), clean up the mess (damn nagging conscience), sit down in my mess and cry (a strong contender, but not the winner). And of course, some attractive guy walked out and saw me staring transfixed by the pile of apples, brown sugar, and glass on the sidewalk-- really, it was the topping on the pie, as it were.

That was the end of the pie. I didn't even get to taste it-- again, a bad option that received a lot of consideration, but finally my taste for apples and cinnamon was bested by my distaste for Pyrex shards and emergency room visits. The fall festival was still a smashing (ha) success, complete with a moment of silence for my fallen pie.

There was a silver lining, though. I got home from work that day with an urge to write about my fruit-filled failure and though, "Hmm, if I had a blog, I could write about this." So it's only appropriate that as Long Island Sound approaches its 1-month birthday celebration this Saturday I avenge the pie that contributed to its inception.

Let's just hope that Son of Pie's life is a little longer and ends in dismemberment rather than a fatal fall.