danger pie.

I spent last Friday night running around like a chicken with its head cut off, a chicken who was expecting company the next day and had promised to cook a big dinner and also had its head cut off. I had a big pan of baked beans in the oven and a container full of deviled eggs in the fridge. There was a bowl of egg salad on the counter, made from leftover deviled egg parts. A pie crust was cooling on the counter, and it was time to make chocolate pie filling.

It's easy for a chicken to make chocolate pie, as long as the chicken has a big stand mixer to do all the work. All a chicken has to do is put the ingredients in, then add four eggs, one at a time, mixing for five minutes after each egg. The chicken can do whatever it wants in between egg additions, perhaps weep over beaten eggs.

It was hot in the kitchen because of the combined efforts of the oven, the dryer, and the dishwasher. It was hot everywhere I went, because I was doing so much running around. In between eggs, I went all over the house, tidying up, sweeping, mopping, stuffing junk into closets. Each egg is only supposed to mix for five minutes, but each egg got more like six or seven or even eight minutes because I wasn't paying close attention to the time. By the time the last egg had been mixed it, the filling was noticeably runnier than I was used to. No matter, that just made it easier to pour into the waiting crust. I transferred the filling from mixing bowl to crust, covered it all in aluminum foil, and put it in the fridge. I crossed one more item off my list, licked the mixer's beater, took a bite of warm egg salad and washed it down with a swig of beer.

I think I was folding clothes five minutes later when all of a sudden, my stomach felt really weird. Not a good weird, like the way it feels when a boy holds your hand for the first time, but more like the way it feels when you're not sure if you're going to throw up or just need a really good burp. Then I had a really good burp but didn't feel any better.

Was it the raw eggs in the pie? Or the warm mayo in the egg salad? Or the fact that I hadn't eaten anything since lunch but a few spoonfuls of egg salad, a beer, and a beater's worth of chocolate pie filling?

At that point, it was 10 PM. All but one or two of the items on my to-do list were crossed out. I was so tired. I threw out the egg salad, but there remained the possibility of a dangerous pie. I did not want to poison my guests. But I did not want to make another pie. Another pie meant another pie crust. It could have been the egg salad. It could have been nothing at all. I could maybe serve the pie and hope for the best. Was I comfortable being that kind of lazy, reckless, and selfish person? Maybe, as long as I didn't have the be the kind of person that made another pie.

I called Josh, because I needed him to tell me to do the right thing. I needed him to tell me to make another pie. Because the right path was clear before me, I just needed a little strength to go down it.

He did not answer.

I sighed, forced to give myself the strength. I got out three sticks of butter (yes, three - two for filling, one for crust) and made another pie. I timed each egg to the second. I covered it in foil and marked the top with a plus sign, plus for "less likely to become violently ill," because there are no guarantees with raw eggs. The next day, I served the second pie, and it was buttery delicious. No one got sick or even had to burp.

I did not throw out the first pie. I really could have used the fridge space, but I let it stay. Because there was still the possibility that it was a perfectly good pie, one that was rich and delicious and would not make a healthy adult sick at all. There was really only one way to know.

Last night, Josh finished the second, definitely not diseased, pie. He knew the story of the first pie, how one lick of the beater may have made my stomach turn. But that seemed a long time ago, and he was willing to blame the egg salad if that meant he might get to eat another whole chocolate pie.

I cut half a slice of the first pie, which we now called the Danger Pie. I was going to eat it, and if I had to spend the night in the bathroom, we would know. Josh offered to be the guinea pig himself, but I don't think his heart was really in it. No, I said, this is my experiment, and I will take the risk. He would just have to hold my hair back.

I ate the pie. It was rich and even creamier than usual, no doubt because of the extra beating.

Five minutes later, I felt fine.

Thirty minutes later, no problems at all.

An hour later, still okay.

An hour and a half later, Josh couldn't take it anymore and ate the other half of my slice of pie, declaring the Danger Pie to be safe. I guess it was the egg salad. Or maybe I just needed another good burp.