I wanted to do some writing tonight but instead I ate pumpkin pie. Does this happen to anyone else?
Anywho, while I’m talking about pumpkin pie, here’s a slightly silly and very random story.
The story ends with my head on my kitchen table in tears. It starts here:
When I lived overseas for a few years, I actually had to bake my own pumpkin pie if I wanted it for the holidays. Which of course I did because I am in love with it.
However, my oven in Lebanon was a bit on the janky side. You didn’t set the temperature on it. The options were: halfway hot and all the way hot.
I put the oven on all the way hot and got my lil pumpkin pie ready to bake. So proud. Then I put it in the oven and set the timer on my phone (no oven timer, either).
30 minutes later when I checked on my beloved pumpkin pie, nothing had changed. Our sorta janky oven used gas (like, it was connected to a lil gas tank that sat in our kitchen).
Well, those gas tanks run out and then you can’t cook or bake anything and you have to call your building man and say, “we need more gas!” and he does something and then brings up a new tank.
Well, our oven was all out of gas.
It was Christmas Eve at 9:30pm.
I was making the pumpkin pie for Christmas the next day. It was too late to call my building man.
So I put my not-baked pie in the fridge, turned the kitchen light off, sat down at my kitchen table, layed my cheek down, and had a nice cry in the dark.
The next day came, and I called my building man. He brought a new gas tank, I pulled the pie out of the fridge, put the oven on all the way hot, and, blessedly, the pie turned out all right.
Now, whenever I bake (ie: buy) a pumpkin pie, I think of that time.
And guess what? Look at that. I wrote something.