Thin Slices

A couple nights before Thursday night, I got a message with the subject line “Thin Slices–I may have overdone it.” Caught up in the excitement of being on the pie list, my correspondent now worried she had been too magnanimous. She included a list of the chosen. It seemed like a good party to me.

When the pie arrived most everyone had gathered and was snacking in the secret back room.

We immediately started bad-mouthing climate change, last winter’s general shittiness, and a certain Russian family. Poles and Hungarians have much to say about cherries and a bit to say about Russians, and there were two-and-a-half Poles and one-and-a-half Hungarians in the room. Also two Canadians and a Turk. Say no more. Say no more. The remainder of us were just as biased against anything that might keep us from having fatter slices of pie. In that we all agreed.

I spent quite a bit of breath apologizing for the poor cherry harvest, for only bringing one pie. Canadians most of all don’t understand scarcity. And yet when the pie was distributed, there was still a bit left in the pie plate. It was a miracle—or I had  initially miscounted. I’m going with miracle.

Someone brought the perfect wine for the occasion. Toasting happened. Pictures were taken.  A little birdy tweeted.

After the first round of pie, we had a tour of the front. Garbage walruses, singing mussels, faux foam, and a painting under a swimming pool. Broken things. Things that were things. Things that were not things. Nothing that was like anything else. “This is What Sculpture Looks Like.”

The fat slice of pie waited for us to return. Return we did for more wine and pie scraps. First slivers, then fork pecks. Finally just crumbs. This is what fun looks like.