Cherry Fruit Pies

            My birthday this year sucked.  I turned 51 this year.  No, not a landmark birthday like the prior year, but my birthday none the less.  If I am asked how I spent my birthday this year my response will not be blowing out birthday candles on a cake made for me.  It will not be starting my day being pampered with breakfast in bed.  It will not be opening fantastically thoughtful gifts from my loved ones.  The answer, as pathetic as it sounds, will be I spent it alone in my room eating Drake’s cherry fruit pies and sulking. 

            You know those pies.  Those pies that almost became extinct when Hostess Bakery, of Twinkie fame, went out of business a few years ago.  Each package contains two puffy pockets of delectable fruit filling, coated with a crackled coat of white sugar glaze.  The package is made of thin wax coated paper, emblazoned with an orange and blue logo and a “baker” duck mascot, perched happily in the corner, wooden spoon in hand.  It crinkles and crunches like fall leaves, making it impossible to open one discreetly.  But hell, if you are going down the road of enriched white flour and high fructose corn syrup you may as well own it.  No matter how carefully I try to open it, I cannot avoid that noise, its melody a siren call to my two dogs.

            Each package contains two pies, approximately four square inches.  Their surfaces gleam with a semi-transparent layer of glucose, their edges thick and crimped, their centers swollen and bulbous.  I suppose the logic behind two pies versus one large one is that you can have one now and save one for later.  That never happens.  

            I had such a bad day on my birthday.  A follow up to the shit fest that was my entire summer.  My husband’s gift to me consisted of an off handed comment, “Oh yeah, Happy Birthday, we don’t have any money so you aren’t getting a gift.”  Big deal, I’d probably have to buy it for myself anyway.  My son doesn’t even acknowledge my existence on a normal day, beyond reminding me how intrusive I am and how I’ve ruined his life.  My birthday has no significance to him.  My daughter, my one saving grace, slept in that day and didn’t even make me a homemade birthday card.  I was crestfallen and angry.

            So, as is my normal practice, I silently seethed and my blood boiled, but I said nothing.  I drank stale, leftover coffee because no one could be bothered to make me a pot of fresh coffee – I wasn’t going to do it, it was my birthday.  I hung two loads of laundry, laboriously lugging the hamper down the stairs – what better way to look like a victim.  I fed animals, made beds, washed dishes, vacuumed rugs.  You name it, I did it.  It was my birthday damn it, and I was going to show them.  This is what I do best: play the victim. 

            What can I say?  It’s kind of how I was raised.  I never felt empowered to say what I wanted.  I was never allowed to speak my mind.  I knew, even though it was unspoken, that to go against the norm (at least the norm in the household) was frowned upon, to say the least. 

            So here I sat, on my birthday, continuing old habits.  Not saying what I really felt.  Not saying that I wanted them to make a fuss over me, even a little bit.  Not saying that I was special, God damn it!  Instead, I wrapped myself in a blanket of unhappiness and the feeling of being unappreciated and I reveled in it!  After several hours of sulking around at home, I stormed out of the house and “ran away”, which is my code for speeding off in the car to go cry somewhere.  This, of course, did not elicit the response I wanted.  No, my husband, did not call after me to come home.  No, my son, was completely clueless that I was even gone.  I only managed to bring my poor daughter to tears, inflicting on her the kind of guilt I was bombarded with in my own youth.

            So, I came home.  Like a dog with my tale between my legs.  Home to my daughter.  Home to wipe off her tears.  Home to, hopefully, prevent her from the onus of guilt.  Home to do my job – to be a mother.  My daughter and I then spent the second half of my birthday like many other days, grocery shopping and running errands.

 It was during this mundane trip to the grocery store where I, upon turning a corner, came upon the Drake’s cherry fruit pies.  There they were, on the highest shelf, above the stacks of Twinkies and Ring Dings (clearly more popular), almost unnoticeable.  And I was transformed by their promise of salvation.  The possibility of their metamorphic power over me and my sadness.  Writing this makes me realize how pitiful that sounds – that food is the answer, the cure all for life’s woes.  But, as my current overweight status would tell you, that is what I know.  This is a habit that is hard to break and I am hoping that writing about incidents like this will help me have a healthier relationship with food.

So I took a box and I bought it.  It wasn’t even on sale, which is a major sin for me.  And later that night, after the dinner dishes were cleared and cleaned and the pillows on the sofa were properly fluffed and all the creatures I “mother” were down for the night and I was showered and in my pajamas, I sat on my bed in my room and I ate pie.  And for that short moment, alone with my thoughts and fears, cradling that sticky puff of sweetness in my hands, it was a happy birthday.