Moncton — After staring at it for more than two days, 39-year-old Greater Moncton resident Peter Grace consumed over 90 per cent of a pumpkin pie that was left over from Thanksgiving.
“I was so good for so many hours,” sobbed Grace. “I’ve been trying to lose some weight. After a modest Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, I had just a tiny slice with some real whipped cream. It was delicious, but ultimately that was a mistake. Ever since then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
This past Sunday, both sides of Grace’s family gathered at their house for Thanksgiving dinner. His mother-in-law brought along several cooked dishes for the meal (because her daughter’s “aren’t as good as mine,” she confided). Included in the imported delectables was a 12-inch diameter homemade pumpkin pie.
“I knew I was in trouble right away. I mean, I love pumpkin pie! It’s my favourite holiday dish,” said Grace. “I figured I’d have a little slice to give myself a little treat — I’ve been really, really good. Then, everyone else would have a slice, it would be gone and that would be the end of it.”
However, it was not over by a long shot. None of the other 16 attendees had a slice, and his mother-in-law insisted that the pie stay at their house “for the kids.”
“She knows damn well our fussy kids don’t eat pumpkin pie! She just didn’t want it going home with her to test her will power… just sayin’.”
The pie sat in Grace’s refrigerator for the next two days, with no one else in the family having a single slice. “With all of the comments that my mother-in-law made about my wife’s cooking, there was no way my bride was going to choke down a single mouthful of that delectable pie,” recounted Grace. “I considered throwing it away, but I just didn’t have the willpower.”
Finally, on Tuesday evening Grace could resist no longer. “I can’t recall exactly how it all went down; I was pretty ‘hangry’ by then,” he said in a regretful tone. “I remember getting a fork, grabbing the pie plate, covering that sucker in the rest of the whipped cream, and just going to town on it. At one point, I lost the fork and I was just using my bare hands.
“I started to regain my senses when I was licking the pie plate clean. It was gone. Every single speck of it.”
Grace tried unsuccessfully to come up with a recovery plan that would mitigate his lapse in commitment to his diet. “I told myself, ‘Well, I’ll just have to skip breakfast and lunch to make up for that.’ But, I couldn’t. In fact, I was into the fridge just a few hours later and devoured all of turkey and stuffing leftovers.
“And the apple pie. With ice cream. Also, the potatoes and gravy.
“Oh god, I’m pathetic,” he concluded.