The Fate of a Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie


My 13-year-old granddaughter sent me a message last week asking if I would make her a strawberry-rhubarb pie for her 14th birthday.

It felt like Christmas! 

Of course I would make her a strawberry-rhubarb pie! As many as she would like! We decided I would deliver the pie for supper on her birthday. My son Brian and I would be staying for her Celebration supper, complete with a Special-Order Strawberry-Rhubarb pie!

When that special day arrived, I decided to make an apple pie along with the strawberry-rhubarb pie.  Ingredients were measured and mixed and two pies were the result. I dressed up the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie since it represented what would have been her Birthday Cake. I wrapped both pies up in aluminum foil. Then placed them side by side on a wooden tray and placed that tray on the back seat. Off we went with the radio on high and the excitement growing. 

As I made the last turn onto their road, I heard something. Something going on in the back seat. No! That would never happen I told myself. I had wrapped the pies up pretty tight. Taking a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw only one pie on the wooden tray. I prayed it was the strawberry-rhubarb pie. But it wasn't. Of course it wasn't! I pulled off the road. Opened my door, hurried around the car and opened the other door only to be greeted by a very sticky mix of strawberries, rhubarb and sugar, slowly oozing out of the car like lava flowing slowly, deliberately and devouring everything in its way-little pebbles and piles of dirt and grass and weeds and clover and twigs and a few crawly things that never had a chance to escape.

I yelled for my son to give me tissues from the glove compartment. I found an old box. Ripped it up, using a larger piece as a scooper for the displaced strawberries, rhubarb and goo. I would scoop some of it up. Throw it into the field. I would repeat the process, in a hurry to get as much of that gooey mess out of the car as I could. The apple pie was fine. So was half of the strawberry-rhubarb despite the other half looking like a disaster. 

Once I thought I had done the best I could, I opened one of my son's ginger ales. Washed my hands. Dried them using my jeans for a towel. Got back in the Pie Wagon and off we went as a few cows came to investigate what was smelling so sweet and delicious in their field.

Something tells me a certain 14-year-old will look back on that birthday and remember helping her grandmother, using paper towels and wipes to clean away leftover sticky, gooey, once delicious strawberries from the floor of her grandmother's vehicle. 

I am hoping she will also remember what was left of the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie she requested and how much she enjoyed it on her 14th Birthday.

 

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