Years ago before I retired, I’d asked my wife to make a Lemon Meringue Pie for the staff in my office. She bakes like a grandma before the first great war. Anyway, she made a pudding with egg yolks, lemon juice and zest, beat the egg whites with powdered sugar and a little cream of tartar, and made her own pie crust without using a recipe. She finished the pie late the night before and left it on the kitchen table.
Next morning I got up and walked in the kitchen. The meringue on the pie was stripped almost completely down to the pudding. “Iris!” “What happened to this pie?”, I yelled as I was about to get my stick that’s no bigger around than my thumb and beat her soundly! She came out of the bedroom trembling in abject fear. “Look at this pie!”. “Why did you maliciously deface this fine pie that I demanded you to make?”. She was bowed down in the position of obedience and quietly said, “I didn’t do anything to the pie; it was perfect when I went to bed.”
I was angry to the point that my blood pressure could have killed me and passed out cold on the floor. On awakening, I found myself tied securely to a pole with branches and wood stacked around me. My wife was sitting on a tree stump holding a burning torch made from a stick with a grease soaked rag on the end. She looked pensive and stern as Choctaw women can look when they’re about to go to war. For the first time in my life I said, “I’m sorry…..”.
She didn’t untie me, but turned and walked quietly back into the house. It took me six hours to work free from the rope.
A year later when we started talking again, she told me what had happened. We were living rurally in an old country house. An enormous pack rat had found its way in through a hole under our propane water heater and engorged itself on my pie. She trapped it the next day in a live trap and released it outside while the cat watched her intently as she opened the cage. It never made it into the brush.
Thinking back, there might be a lesson or two here: one lesson is in empathy; and the other is in the potential consequences for foolishly underestimating your women. After the day I’d spent tied to that stake, I now believe I know exactly how that rat felt just before the end…..
Next morning I got up and walked in the kitchen. The meringue on the pie was stripped almost completely down to the pudding. “Iris!” “What happened to this pie?”, I yelled as I was about to get my stick that’s no bigger around than my thumb and beat her soundly! She came out of the bedroom trembling in abject fear. “Look at this pie!”. “Why did you maliciously deface this fine pie that I demanded you to make?”. She was bowed down in the position of obedience and quietly said, “I didn’t do anything to the pie; it was perfect when I went to bed.”
I was angry to the point that my blood pressure could have killed me and passed out cold on the floor. On awakening, I found myself tied securely to a pole with branches and wood stacked around me. My wife was sitting on a tree stump holding a burning torch made from a stick with a grease soaked rag on the end. She looked pensive and stern as Choctaw women can look when they’re about to go to war. For the first time in my life I said, “I’m sorry…..”.
She didn’t untie me, but turned and walked quietly back into the house. It took me six hours to work free from the rope.
A year later when we started talking again, she told me what had happened. We were living rurally in an old country house. An enormous pack rat had found its way in through a hole under our propane water heater and engorged itself on my pie. She trapped it the next day in a live trap and released it outside while the cat watched her intently as she opened the cage. It never made it into the brush.
Thinking back, there might be a lesson or two here: one lesson is in empathy; and the other is in the potential consequences for foolishly underestimating your women. After the day I’d spent tied to that stake, I now believe I know exactly how that rat felt just before the end…..
