No good deed goes unpunished

I spotted it as I made my final turn at the end of the shopping aisles in Food Lion – the large, elegant, emerald-green box touting "Thaw and Enjoy!" It featured a beautiful photo of a slice of banana cream pie topped with whipped cream. Usually I go for its cousin, tart Key lime pie, but Jeff had just mentioned the other day that he fondly remembered his mother's homemade banana cream pie.

I am no baker; the process relies on careful measurements for which I'm much too slap-happy. Besides, I have been accused of suffering (if you can call it that) from narcissistic histrionic personality disorder, and although I think this may be part of having an artistic temperament, I saw a chance to appear to be less so for once. Particularly since Valentine's Day lay on the horizon, and I wanted a nice gift and dinner out. Remember, no takeout ever!

So I plopped the elegant box on top of my burgeoning shopping cart and wheeled it to the cashier. At home, it would hardly fit in my small refrigerator-freezer, which had replaced my mother's similar one from a couple of years ago in the tiny alcove of the kitchen. Most women wouldn't stand for it, but I am not kitchen proud.

My mother covered all the countertops with contact paper. I was once sued by a landlord and summarily evicted when my mother came to my apartment unbeknownst to me while I was teaching school and covered every inch, Joan Crawford-like, with contact paper. I advised the sheriff who banged on my storm door on Pilottown Road in Lewes to go to Chestnut Street in Milton, because that's where the culprit sat in her recliner watching "The Bold and the Beautiful,” her favorite soap opera, flanked by lamps adorned with ball fringe she glued to the bottoms of their shades.

Anyhow, to get back to my story, I told Jeff I had a surprise waiting for him after dinner – banana cream pie! It would be somewhat like his mother’s. "Tell me about 15 minutes before you want it," I said. The Key lime pie usually only took about 15 minutes to thaw. It's housed in the same style of box, but is much thinner, and I like it slightly frosty.

Twenty minutes later, I tried to slice the circular confection with a large knife. Like a scene from "The Shining,” it lifted up in its entirety and plopped back down with a thud, fragmenting some of the crust as it hit the contact-papered counter my mother had created many moons ago.

Finally, I read the directions: "Thaw domed pie (it should have read doomed pie) for several hours if one wishes to serve the entire pie to a group." This I would never do! “If a piece or two is desired, slice with a warm wet knife and thaw for two hours.” I somehow managed to hack out two wedges then and there. Jeff, being more cautious than I am, kept testing his for the rest of the evening, and he could not, or would not, penetrate the frozen tundra. I, on the other hand, greedily thawed each bite piecemeal on my tongue, eventually devouring the whole slice, and was rewarded with a slight toothache for my usual inability to suffer delayed gratification. This required me to down a large tablespoon (or two or three) of Nyquil.

Finally, when my usual bedtime of 3 a.m. arrived, I tested Jeff's barely touched piece of pie, devoid of the extra whipped cream topping, which was the only part he could eat. It was still frozen stiff! Oh well, I had attempted a good deed, and as I always like to say, "No good deed ever goes unpunished!" This effort will do for some time!

I suppose my mother thought she was doing a good deed when she contact-papered my whole apartment. She also hot-glued a carpet to the floor while she was there.  "Surprise!" she said when I opened the door and shrieked like the guy in the Edvard Munch painting. Everyone should be glad to have a mother like this!

I once climbed on her lap as a child when she was wearing a skirt, and she admonished me, "You're ruining my pleats!" I learned then the meaning of frosty countenance, but she showed her motherly affection by making me Watergate Salad (named after the hotel featured in the political scandal of that time), a 70s-era concoction of Jello, cottage cheese, marshmallows and fruit cocktail that I loved. The cottage cheese somehow made it less sinful. She also made my favorite food - soup – and sometimes I would sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and heat a cup of that soup in a small, dented pan that actually I still have, like an old friend. Heat and enjoy! As I always say, it's less risky than thawing and warms the heart!