A Slice

Do you have pecan? Do you have lemon? Do you have raisin?
The requests never faltered despite all the delicious pies in front of him my pie customer kept asking for a type of pie that we had run out of at the church barbeque. Picture a beautiful old park in a rural village with towering pine trees, beautifully maintained heritage grounds and a large covered pavilion for outdoor picnic events and you have captured the charming setting of our chicken barbeque. Several hundred tickets are sold in advance and the community shows up in wonderful support of our fundraising dinner. A great deal of homemade pie is required.
When I arrived to take my shift as pie lady everything was neat and tidy, well organized for the onslaught of impending customers. All kinds of pies were precut, plated and well shelved in covered protection from the elements and hornets attracted to the sweet delights. A long counter of ready to take pies were covered with plastic sheeting to repel the few raindrops that dropped from the darkening skies. fortunately, the storm blew over to the west. The plastic was not clear but rather white, slightly transparent stuff. You could see the pies and reasonably guess what kind they were but they were slightly obscured by the plastic.
It was interesting to watch people scan the length of the counter searching for their favourite, best looking slice. Everyone was good humoured and understanding of the need to keep the food covered and after a few moments of choosing and pleasant chat they accepted their pie and went off to enjoy it. All except this one man who I mentioned earlier. He asked about almost every slice available and had me running off to check the pies in waiting on the indoor shelving to seek after his favourite kind of pie. At first I thought it was rather amusing but due to my healing foot issues the comedy of it all wore thin in a few minutes. I don’t even remember what kind of pie he finally settled on as we were so busy with the backlog of other pie customers I had to let him suffer and go on with helping others. Whatever piece he finally got I hope it didn’t come with an attached hornet hidden in the filling. Honestly, I hope it didn’t.

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