Don't Bypass the Pie Pass

~ A double*feature duet,
at the pen and in the kitchen ~

Ray Charles was doing what Ray Charles does best in the background. Though Ben and Brett had Georgia on their mind with the way the Giants had plucked a few feathers out of the Falcon's strut, these brawny boys were more into staging the mess'around as they worked together in Ben's mom's kitchen back in Findlay, Ohio. Brett threw eggs with only a bare moment's notice of, "Go long, Ben -- go long." With just a few yolks cracking up, the yucks kept coming, as recipe book after Ma Roethlisberger's recipe book was yanked down from the high shelf the boys had no trouble reaching. When Hit the Road Jack came on, Brett looked up at the winking Felix the Cat clock over the kitchen sink and shovel-passed the Domino's brown sugar bag hard, fast and down low with a swift muttered, "Here we go again."

"You don't know me", Ben sputtered over the oooomph to his gut, "if you thought that one would get by. Now come on, let's make this pecan pie."

“Me come on? You don’t have to tell me Big, I’m the one who has to get to Detroit before kickoff.”, the horn-hat QB defended.

“I can’t believe you are going to that game after the homecoming the cheeseheads gave you a couple of weeks ago. Besides, you know you aren’t going to find anything remotely resembling a home cooked Thanksgiving dinner in Motown.”

Brett, being the comeback king of not just QB-historee, but lyric-quips rile-valry, stirred nuts into the stickey goo, while informing Ben, "I have a way to survive - I'm taking one of these pies as my carry-on luggage.”

“Brett your mama might make the best pecan pie way down the Mississippi but around here we like to run ‘em through the oven before they go down down down that road. So fill ‘er up, let’s roll...”, Ben sang as he spun around holding out two empty pie shells for Brett to ladle full with the lumpy brown goo.

Brett scraped the bowl clean and popped the oven door open for Ben who, careful not to fumble, made the completion setting the first and then the second down with plenty of time left on the Felix The Cat Clock. High fives were in order followed by the opening of beers.

Big Ben took a sip and asked his possible Super Bowl foe just why he was going to Detroit to watch his former team. The team whose fans had showed a short memory and such bad manners to him only weeks prior.

“Because I’ve been a fortunate man and I’m grateful,” he said without a hint of ire. Then that shit-eating Brett Favre grin overtook his face and he added, “You know John Madden won’t be there with his eight legged turkey this year. I figured those boys might just like some pie.” The two grid-iron good guys clinked beers as Junior Brown hung it up sending them both into a kitchen-wide air guitar frenzy.

'Bout this time, Mrs Roethlisberger stepped into the disarray display gaining yardage in her usually well-kept kitchen, and fondly one'upped both grown boys as the radio flaired out some lyrically high quality Beatles, in fine game-day finesse of her own. "All together now, you rockstars had best clean up your creation mess. Any time at all, it doesn't take a fool on a hill or in the stadium nosebleed seats to know receivers have to get back and let our fave Favre score. Sure Brett, you take an extra pie down that long and winding road. Just put the word out around both leagues, to burly, brusque, behemoth defenders, keep your hands off my baby!"

“You got it Mrs. R.” Brett winked and kissed her cheek before twirling her around the kitchen floor.

"Happy Thanksgiving!"

FROM ABSOLUTELY*KATE

AND PIE-MAKING HARRY B SANDERFORD

with the thankfulness of

double-featured writing companions and inspiration

To all aboard the HARBINGER*33

plus the writer-colleagues we sail with and celebrate so well

THANKS BE TO YOU IN WARM JOYS

(and good messy kitchens)

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare.
They are consumed in twelve minutes.
Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
~ Erma Bombeck ... pulled off of Harry's refrigerator magnet collection