Hot Midnight Coffee, Oil City: "Your free Fuck You Custard Pie is in the mail!"

After making an Oreo cream pie for a dinner party at which the diners, combined, couldn't finish it off and wouldn't take it home, there was a quarter of this pie in the freezer, and naturally all I could think was DAMMIT PIE STOP TALKING TO ME. There was no one I could think of to take the pie away from me. It gave me an idea: the Dammit Cream Pie exchange.

This would be an agreement you had with friends and neighbors, preferably near neighbors so that you wouldn't have to take the food far. If you found yourself with abundant leftovers, food you didn't like, were allergic to, etc., you would go to the nearest member of the exchange and say, "Here's some Oreo cream pie we couldn't finish the other night!" Cheerily, but with a note of finality -- because the giver cannot be refused, you see. The givee can throw it out or pass it along to someone else she knows, but she can't say no, because that isn't how the game is played. The obligation makes it a favor to you, not her. She can't give it to another member of the exchange, either, because then you would have food making the rounds, and that would defeat the point -- it has become her problem. Soon enough she will show up at your door saying, "Here's some coffee cake," and you will take it off her hands, as you must.

You'd have to have some ground rules, of course -- no offloading gross food, like stale chips or salsa with broken-off bits of tortilla in it. Also there would be holiday amnesty, so that nobody would be obligated to rehouse Thanksgiving yams or Halloween candy unless they wanted it. It will probably serve as an exchange for desserts and rich, fatty foods, since people are happy to make room for decently healthy leftovers. But what better way to unite neighbors than to demand periodically that they enjoy cream pie?

Comments

Well, they could enjoy it, or, as you said, they could throw it out. But you wouldn't have to see it, so it wouldn't feel like waste. :-)

Posted by: Legalpetrel | June 10, 2006 at 09:18 AM

That's a pretty interesting idea; if you were close enough to the neighbors, it would be nice to have a resource for unneeded food. Even the recipients would have the benefit of trying new or unexpected homemade goodies.

However, there should be some sort of limited ingredient opt-out option for participants (set up ahead of time), so if they have an allergy or can't stand a certain ingredient, you have to go to the next closest person rather than them.

Posted by: Jenny W | June 11, 2006 at 03:58 AM