Pie Crust, My Nemesis

Let me take you back to two Octobers ago...I can't remember how many hours I was working, or how many classes I was taking, but I was doing both, and I was stressed. Thanksgiving was at my Aunt Connie's house, which can be a stressful event in itself. She is a very good cook, extremely picky about her food and to make matters worse I volunteered to take the pie.
I didn't even know I couldn't make a decent pie at that point. I began making the pie, possibly the night before, and ended up in tears. It was too thin, kept getting holes in it, not sticking together properly, then sticking too much. I called my mom sobbing, and under her advice decided to just buy a pie crust, I had too many other things going on. So I did, I went to WINCO, bought a pre-made pie crust, and made my pie. It was stress free but...I was horribly embarrassed to be taking this pre-made pie crust to Connie's house. I was nervous about it all through dinner. When it came to dessert time, I watched Connie and saw the disapproval spread across her face. She knew. Of course she knew, there is no comparison to homemade. I kept quiet as she ate everything on her plate except the crust of her pie, ashamed.
I think I tried the traditional crust maybe once more and said to hell with it, and switched to glorious, wonderful oil press crusts. 4 ingredients, mix, and press into the pie plate. Presto! No rolling, no ice cubes, no worries! Screw you old fashioned pie crust you asshole!
Bring us to tonight. I want pumpkin pie. I don't have enough oil for oil crust. I do have butter and shortening. Hmm. No such thing as a press butter crust? What do they know? I will just make my own I said. Erin 1, Crust 0. Well, I made my dough, without a food processor, so I'm expecting this crust to be tough from the get go. Erin 1, Crust 1. Oh well I said, it's still pie!



So I press it in, pressing lightly around the chunks of butter and shortening. So easy! Erin 2, Crust 1.



I fill it with pumpkin goodness and put it in the oven. Not 5 minutes later the butter chunks are melting and dripping down all over the oven. Probably should have put that on a cookie sheet. Erin 2, Crust 2. So I drag out this hot liquid pie to put it on a cookie sheet, (Aaron on the phone tonight, why didn't you just put the cookie sheet on the second rack under the pie? Well because I didn't think of that!) thinking to myself, I really should have put this on a cookie sheet with an edge all the way around. Total idiot. So every 10 minutes or so I have to blot the butter off the cookie sheet so it doesn't run over AGAIN. Erin 2, Crust 3.
Then, it took forever to bake because I was opening the oven constantly. Meanwhile the crust is getting too dark, and I'm fumbling around trying to find my crust protectors. Erin 2, Crust 4.


Finally, 30 minutes after it should have been done, it was finished. It is quite possibly the ugliest pie I have ever made. I have yet to taste it, but I'm going to call final score: Erin 2, Crust 5. I think from now on I am going to stick to what I know I can do, which is the fool proof oil crust. This was pretty much a disaster, and I refuse to give in to ice cubes and pastry cloths and rolling pins.