Making Pie

I was invited to a friend's house for thanksgiving dinner, and so I offered to bring my upside-down pecan pumpkin pie. It's pretty much the most amazing pumpkin pie anyone has ever tasted. After waking up around noon on Thanksgiving, I set to work making my desert. I looked at the recipe, and realized that I had forgotten that I was out of evaporated milk. So, I headed out to Sherm's, battled through the wild crowds, all buying last minute ingredients for their meals. As I was making my way through the store, I passed a display of evaporated milk, so I grabbed one, and was on my way.

After I finally made it back home, I started mixing up the ingredients. First, a big can of pumpkin pie mix, next the evaporated milk. Once I had added the milk, I knew something wasn't right. I looked at my recipe, I looked at the can. I had purchased the wrong size, 12 ounces instead of 5. I didn't have a second can of pumpkin, and I dreaded going all the way to the other side of town and fighting for another can of pumpkin. Besides that, time was running out, and I needed to get to my friend's house soon! I decided to check the local convenience store, and thank goodness, they had a can of pumpkin (puree instead of the mix, but I could deal with that!).

I got home, and mixed up the pies, poured them into the pans and started putting them into the oven. I had ended up with two large pies and four small ones (like pumpkin pie shots). After I put the two large pies in, I realized that I didn't have room in the front for all four little pies, so I reached back and carefully set the little pies in the back. Well, I wasn't quite careful enough, and one of them dumped over, spilling all over the bottom of my oven.

I cleaned up what I could, and continued cooking. In a couple minutes (unknown to me) smoke started billowing out of the oven, and then the smoke alarm went off. Our smoke alarm is ... excessively loud. BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEP THERE IS SMOKE IN THE HALLWAY BEEEP BEEEEP BEEEP EVACUATE THE BUILDING BEEP BEEEP BEEEP! and so on. I opened the windows and doors, and frantically waved something at the smoke alarm, trying to get the smoke away from it. I turned off the oven, and eventually the alarm stopped. I called up my friend and asked her if I could bake my pies in her oven. She said, sure, as soon as the turkey and rolls are done cooking. So, I started taking the pies out of the oven so that I could wrap them up and bring them over. The first pie I took out, as I was setting it on the stove top, slipped and fell, splat, upside-down on the floor of my kitchen. I almost cried.

I took the other pies out (no more accidents) and cleaned up the floor as best I could. I was a little worried about transporting the pie. I figured that with my luck, I would dump them all over my car. They made it to my friend's house. I carried them to the fence, opened the gate, tripped, almost fell, caught myself, made it through her herd of mastiffs and into the kitchen without further loss of pie. Whew!

Sadly, the pie sat there all through dinner, as the turkey (like all turkeys) took longer to cook than expected. They finally went into the oven at 7, baked for an hour and then got put in the freezer in an attempt to cool them down before people fell asleep. By 9:30 when I had to leave for work, they were still hot, and so I left without seeing what anyone thought of my pies.

In the middle of the night, my friend sent me a message telling me that it was the best pumpkin pie she had ever tasted.

I have half a can of pumpkin puree left ...