I Find Myself

In a Linda McCartney Pie

I was thinking I ought to have a drink last night, as everyone else was out. I considered my options. We had some gin, and we had some orange juice. Nobody chooses to drink gin and orange, but needs must when the devil drives, whatever that means.

But ice was an issue.

The kids never refill the ice trays and, as expected, there was but one cube. So I felt around in the bottom of the freezer drawer, and found a few random spilled cubes, plus some strange globules of ice or hardened snow. I expect the Inuit would have a name for it.

Anyway, after drinking for a while, I became aware of some unexpected complexity to the flavours in my mouth. A depth. A slightly foetid undertone. I supposed it was some residue of what had been in the freezer, which had infused itself into the ice. There was pea, there, which was fine, but also veggie burger, I think, and fishfinger. Prawn, perhaps. Not that it stopped me. When you’re drinking, these things are mere irritants.

And digging deep in the freezer had revealed unexpected treasures. Two Linda McCartney fake meat pies. Of all the fake meat pies, Linda’s are the best. I took them out and contemplated them for a time. One or two? It was a tough call. Any bigger and you’d be mad to have two. Any smaller, and two would be the obvious way to go.

I hate these dilemmas.

Or maybe I love them, because they distract you from the deeper problems, the imponderables. Though of course it’s precisely the imponderables that we spend our lives pondering.

Modesty prevailed, with regard to the pies. And I made a nest for the pie with some oven chips that I found.

I like it when everyone goes out. I can be myself.