Holiday Hysteria and Christmas Catastrophe: A Word about Planning Ahead and Pie Crusts

I like to bake pies for Thanksgiving. Really, what’s not to love? The sweet and spicy aroma of pumpkin pie? Delicious!! The smell of toasted coconut and the magic of watching powder mix and milk slowly turn into pudding on the stove? Scrumptious and satisfying.

What?! You guys don’t have coconut cream pie on Thanksgiving?! But that’s a mainstay tradition in my family . . . with a back story, of course. I used to think pumpkin pie was just full of everything disgusting. And then one day, I just liked it. As for apple pie, I like all the ingredients independent of each other. Apples? Yum. Cinnamon? Yum. Brown sugar? Yum. All of that together? Um, no thanks. I think it’s the mushy apples that get me. Because I was difficult opinionated, my Mom started making coconut cream pie for me. Now, I can’t imagine a Thanksgiving without it.

So making pies is awesome. However, making pie crusts is the opposite of awesome. I have faithfully used Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust that you just have to roll out. So easy, right? And I know that I am not the one who’s all about cheating their way out of making pie crusts. So anticipating the public’s demand in planning ahead, I went to the grocery this Saturday to buy the highly coveted pie crusts. Two weeks before Thanksgiving.

When I arrived at refrigerated case, I started to break out into a cold sweat. No. Effen. Pie crusts.

WTF?!

How is two weeks before Thanksgiving not enough time to buy pie crusts?! Seriously?!

When I went to the checkout line, with my piecrust-less cart that screamed DEFEAT, I didn’t even wait to have the clerk ask me if I found everything alright. I blurted out something about how is it two weeks before Thanksgiving and you are out of piecrusts. Being in his early twenties and taking for granted the magic of the holidays, he mumbled, with this totally bored and condescending look, something like they had been selling a lot lately.

The bagger said there were some in the frozen section.

On the outside, I politely declined. But on the inside, I was declaring if I am going to cheat on making piecrusts, I am going to do it the right way, for Christ’s sake!

In the end, my Mom found them at another store. So either the people at Kroger didn’t buy enough or I need to buy piecrusts when schools supplies make their debut on the shelves: July.

So how are your plans coming along for the holidays? Making any headway? Falling behind? Frustrated? Let’s hear it!