No, no, thank you!
Short Story / The Judges from the Salem Apple Pie Contest can Kiss my Ass Forever (Analysis)
The sky was slate gray and unwelcoming. I yawned as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, amazed that I was getting up this early. I mean, it wasn’t even 11:00 am yet. A record for me in my stint here in WV. And one thing only could get me up and out of my den of a bed that early—-the Salem Apple Butter Festival pie-baking contest.
Knowing that I had to have my pie in Salem by 3:00 pm, I knew that I had a huge amount of work to do. And in order to create a pie that was up to winning standards took effort and concentration at a level that wasn’t typical, or easy. You see, I was making a Harvest Apple pie, with ingredients including (but not limited to) cranberries, raisins, walnuts, and a bunch of other cool shit. Also, I made a batch of pie dough the night before, so I could do that sketchy and confusing criss-cross thing on the top. I forget what that’s called.
Anyway, so I got to work---peeling apples, zesting oranges, rolling dough (this part sucks) and all kinds of crazy and unlikely tasks. Pies of this stature take a lot of skill, know-how, and dilligence. And this couldn’t be just any pie---it had to be elite. Fit for a king. Like, I tried to crawl inside, and think how a pie would think. You know-—‘how can I make myself more appealing to the eye, yet retain the necessary amount of deliciousness for the human who shall be enjoying me?’
After all the prep work, I poured all the ingredients into the pie shell, and got to work on that criss cross dough pattern on top--—this is a total bitch to do by the way. It requires complete and total focus of the mind and body to arrange these delicate pieces of dough in the said pattern. A complete state of mental and physical ease must be attained before even thinking of beginning such a frustrating endeavor. If your dough is too dry, or not dry enough, it could crack or completely break. If a piece near the middle or beginning break, then you have to start all over. Which happened to me, by the way. This resulted in much cursing. Cursing that was clearly heard by neighbors and passersby, who may have thought I was sawing someone up in my kitchen. Nope--just me doing that sketchy criss cross dough pattern on the top of my pie.
Finally, after I and my kitchen looked like that chick’s kitchen in Goodfella’s, you know, the girl near the end who was processing all the cocaine into those cool little balls, we saddled up and hit the road. Pie and baker, master and subject, leader and teammate, hurling through the awesome colors of the West Virginia mountainsides, ready to deliver the greatest goddamned pie that anyone in Salem had ever seen, let alone tasted. Might I add that in addition to the perfectly cooked, golden brown criss cross crust on top, I had drizzled caramel on top, which took said pie to a completely new level. Hopefully, the person judging this pie would be sitting on top of plastic, or perhaps had a diaper of some sort on. Because I could imagine some sort of involuntary soilage as a result of the mere smell of this masterwork.
After some hazardous driving, I finally got to Salem, which was a lot further away than I remember. I mean, it was 3 pm on the head as I hustled this masterwork into the back room of the Kottage Korner II restaurant. I wondered what happened to Kottage Korner 1 as I sprnted as fast as a guy with pie for hands could. It also occoured to me that since I more or less pulled this kick ass pie out of the oven and walked out the door that it was still warm, giving me a subtle advantage over all the other contestants, as who doesn’t like warm apple pie? To not favor warm apple pie above all other pies, room temperature or otherwise, is an act akin to treason in my book.
So as I get closer, I see a group of ladies huddles around a table full of pies. These ladies were a bit old-fashioned. I mean, when you refer to the 90’s, these ladies think yer talking about the 1890’s. They were also staring at me as if I was wearing a suit made out of feces. I’m guessing that they’d never seen a young man walking in with a pie before. Because from the looks of it, these gals had been judging this contest since the inaugaural Apple Butter Festival, and perhaps since the creation of Salem itself.
So I hand my pie over to this crew of walking corpses, and am told to be back here by 6 pm to pick up my pie. ‘And trophy, or whatever they give the winner’ I thought to myself. It was then that I faced the grim reality of spending the next 3 hours in Salem, in the rain. So I basically drove in and around the greater Salem area for the next three hours, pondering on my future as a Salem pie hero. Royalty, if you will.
So there I was, driving up and down and around the surrounding hills, picking up the most amazing AM radio signals ever. That is another thing that kicks ass about WV—-nearly everywhere you go, you pick up these AM radio signals that may or may not be completely pirated. One station played the entire theme song to that old TV soap opera ‘Another World’ over and over and over. Another station sounded like some woman preacher broadcasting from her bedroom. She would preach for a while, and then play her guitar for a while. Then more preaching. And yet more guitar. And she wasn’t terribly great at either one. So that was pretty funny.
After three of the most brutal hours ever, I started back over towards the Kottage Korner II restaurant, wondering what the 1st place prize was. And if everyone would stand and clap when I walked in to claim my prize. And thinking about how pissed off I’d be if they, you know, judged my entire pie and didn’t leave any for Cari or myself.
And this is where things got a little bit weird.
As I walked in to the judging area, I saw a ton of pies. There were pies all over the goddamned place. And every pie was adorned with some sort of ribbon. On one table, there seemed to be pies adorned with very grand ribbons—-large blue, red and gold ones. But for some reason, my pie wasn’t there. ‘Huh’ I thought to myself. I guess they must have taken it out front, or maybe they were taking it around and showing it to everyone. You know, as an example of what a pie is supposed to look like. A kick ass, American beauty of a pie.
So, as I turned around to go see where my pie was, I saw something that nearly made me faint. About 5 feet away was another table. There were pies on that table also. And all those pies had ribbons on them. Shameful, little puny red ribbons. I rubbed my eyes out of disbelief of what I was seeing--—there was my pie-—with a little red ribbobn that said ‘participant’ on it. Oh my God. Plus, they had set the ribbon right on top of my pie, and therefore the caramel, making a mess out of everything.
What a bunch of fucking morons.
And I could start to see what was going on here. They set the loser pies off on another table, so as not to corrupt the dignity of the pies that they judged to be the best. As if the winning pies were ashamed of my pie.
And what’s more, the teeniest little piece had been cut out of mine, meaning that they barely tried it. I couldn’t believe it. There is no way that you can get a sense of the majesty of my pie with such a little teensy weensy piece. That would be like trying to judge the greatness of Beethoven’s 5th by only hearing the first few bars. It’s impossible.
It immediately became very clear to me what was going on—-there was a conspiracy going on here. This whole competition was rigged. What happened, most likely, is that these old broads entered their own pies under false names, and then gave their own stuff 10’s or whatever. Also, they only cut a little piece out of mine, knowing that any judge who wasn’t on the take would obviously give my pie a 10, so they basically circulated as little of as possible. What bullshit.
But that’s fine. More of my pie for me and the wife.
All I know is that next year, I am entering the same exact pie, only I’m gonna hire some lady from a nursing home to enter it for me, so at least I’ll have a fighting chance. And I’m gonna load it up with so many rat and mice turds that they won’t know what hit ‘em.
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tinfish reviewed Version 1 -
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This is quite a funny story, even though the reason and motivation are unknown. I’m glad I knew there was no reason before I read it, because I would be looking for some reason. So, I would recommend making sure the reader knows in the text (it was in the reviewers notes), unless you want the reader to suspiciously question, all the way through, why someone like that would care so much about a contest like that.
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wise2owls reviewed Version 1 -
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This short story brought a tear to my eye and a chuckle to my soul. The Harvest Apple pie that you brought to Salem, West Virginia sounds as if it took a lot of t.l.c. to create. The descriptions of the old ladies, the many pies layed out with various ribbons on them, and the disappointment is evident. Awesome, thank you.
BigMamaMags reviewed Version 1 -
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I found this to be quite amusing. For starters, The top of your pie that you made the criss-cross thing on is called lattice work. I fully enjoyed your discription of your efforts of making the perfect pie. I must say you were robbed. It sounded delicious. I thought your discription of just the smell of it was priceless. The majesty that was your creation was wasted on the narrow minded and forked-tongued ladies that you had the misfortune to be involved with at this affair. Thank you for sharing this with us. Next time bring pie(LOL).
ItsaScotta reviewed Version 1 -
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I personally loved the story, and it was well written. I could sense some writing having been done by you before, so keep it up. Very entertaining was it.
metaphoricalsimile reviewed Version 1 -
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Instead of “A record for me in my stint here in WV,” the sentence could be made easier to read and more elegant by simply writing “A record for my stint in WV.”
The way you use short-cuts to avoid the process of actually making the pie makes the culinary skills of the narrator more doubtful. If the pie contest was rigged, and the narrator is trying to sell the idea that he should have won, you’re going to need to sell the pie-making process, make it sound like the most delicious apple pie ever made.
”...ladies huddles…” should be “huddled.”
I like the informal tone used throughout, it adds to the humor and the relatively unexpected situation of a young man entering a pie in a contest.
Jacamo reviewed Version 1 -
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Very funny piece(writing, not pie) Humorous and witty with a clever ending.It is well written and holds the interest all the way through.Reads as a real scenario might.Well done.
dukelemoyne reviewed Version 1 -
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Vivid account. I could see the action: the restaurant, the drive around WV (been there, done that), the pie tables. Nice showing vs. telling.
You say the story is based on a true incident. It feels more like a journal entry, with a lot of angry emotion. Perhaps you could dilute the venom in your narrative, reserving it for the protagonist’s disappointment at the end. Let your readers see what’s happening and they can figure out for themselves that the piemaker is getting shafted.
Good story, though. Glad they left you some pie.
Thanks for the read.
rosalind reviewed Version 1 -
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Thoroughly enjoyable, but there was so much more you could have done with the premise. Although it was humorous a little more dry wit would have sent this piece over the top. Still, it’s very cute and hard to stop reading. Some of the things you could have done was make the judges appear to actually be in a conspiracy when the character brought the pie in. Either they were glancing at him and whispering, oohing and ahhing without trying to get caught, or snubbing his entry because they were jealous. Let the reader try to guess what their reaction meant before you bring up to the conclusion. The ribbon saying participant was hilarious, and the haphazard way they stuck it on the pie. The piece is good, but some tweaking would make it great!
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