Pie's Bitter Enemy written by Sam

The best thing about this time of year is by far the pie. It is officially the beginning of pie season. The season in which our sweet tooth, salt tooth, and any other type of tooth is satisfied with all varieties of food, but my most valued tooth is by far my pie tooth. I am from a family steeped in the tradition of pies. Most memories of my past birthdays include me blowing the candles out of my birthday pie. Now don't get me wrong, cake is great I love cake but pie just does it more for me. On thanksgiving we hurry through the boring turkey, potatoes, yams, and stuffing so that we can enjoy the real reason for thanksgiving. That is, the variety of pies to choose from. Each year my mom and each of my sisters brings 2-4 pies each. . . I have 5 sisters. Las year we had something like 15 pies between 12 adults or so. It's the best!

But as you surely noticed from the title of this post, pie has a mortal enemy. I know what you're thinking: cake. You would be incorrect. Cake isn't the enemy of pie its more like that friend of yours that you like to have over sometimes because he is mostly fun and buys you candy and slurpies but still just kind of annoys you. So sometimes, maybe 1 out of 5 times he rings the doorbell you pretend you're asleep so you don't have to answer the door. You like him, but only when its convenient for you.

In fact pie's mortal enemy is not cake it is cinnamon. Never and I mean never have I bitten into a cinnamon peach, apple, cherry, or any potentially cinnamon-y pie and thought "Mmmm that is much better with cinnamon than without". No, not once, not ever. You may like cinnamon pies, good for you. It is just my personal opinion that they are better without that particular ingredient. Cinnamon has the same affect on me as do people with peircings or tattoos. I can honestly say Ive never seen a person with tattoo or peircings in which the person looked better with it than without. This is one instance in which less is more people!

But again allow me to explain, I will eat a cinnamon pie, and I will enjoy it. But mostly what I taste is it's potential to be an amazing pie. It reminds me of the time I was playing high school basketball and the coach told me that of all the players on the team I had the most potential. I'm sure the coach's thought process was like this: "that kid tries hard and he needs a compliment. But how can I say that of all the talent on the team, Sam has the least by a long shot without sounding mean? Wait, the 'potential' speech. That's it!" Sometimes I eat a piece of cinnamin peach pie and I just want to hold the little piece of pie in my hands, lightly stroke it's crumbly crust and and say "Aw, even with all the pressures around you, you still have the courage to be you. You are so brave! You just keep trying and maybe someday you can actually have something to be proud of."

Come to think of it, my coach gave me that same speech as well.