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First, decide to make Key Lime Pie. Make sure you do this after Balducci's (the expensive store) is closed (8PM) so you cannot possibly find key lime juice in any store in the neighborhood. Buy regular limes. Buy them at the A&P (the cheap store) for 2 for 89 cents.

Then go to another expensive store for something else and discover that their limes sell for 2 for 89 cents.

Go home and find the coffee can that you put the cornstarch in in 1975. Remove as many of the roach droppings as you can easily (around 1/2 cup). Now measure out 3 tablespoons. Then add 1/4 cup lime juice to the corn starch.

Then reread recipe (The New York Times Cookbook) and realize you were not supposed to combine these. Try to remove cornstarch from lime juice because you don't have any more cornstarch. Fail. Say "fuck".

Combine a cup of sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 cups water in a saucepan. Heat, stirring constantly until it forms custard. Stop stirring periodically to watch new TV show.

Burn bottom of saucepan. Realize you are not forming a custard. Say "fuck".

Separate 3 eggs. Find a little yolk dribble in whites. Pull it out with your finger. See that a bit remains. Say "Shit, I'll just add a little more cream of tartar later."

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stick an Oronoque Crust into the oven. Drop several piecrust shards into the bottom of the oven. Ignore them.

Add non-custard to egg yolks. Watch egg yolks cook, forming egg drop soup. Get egg beater and turn handle around like a maniac. Watch egg drops get smaller but remain extremely solid. Pour mixture into a strainer to remove curdled eggs. Lose around 1/3 of your ingredients this way.

Say "Oh shit, who cares" to no one in particular, adding one tablespoon of butter to the hot mixture. Notice a bowl on the counter. Peer into this bowl and see that there is the corn starch you left out of the saucepan. Say "Oh fuck" but at the same time feel strangely satisfied, because at least now you know WHY you don't have custard.

Realize you could still try to salvage the mother if only you hadn't put the butter in. Dip your hand into the boiling hot liquid to try to scoop out the butter, feeling a strange new kinship with G. Gordon Liddy.

Add the cornstarch (and lime juice that you couldn't get out of it before) to your egg drop soup and beat that mother!

Take out the crust and pour the egg drop soup into it.

Beat egg whites until they are frothy. Do not even try to form "stiff peaks". Tell yourself, "I don't need the aggravation." Throw foam on top of pie and place in the oven.

Smell something burning. Look in oven and realize the loose pieces of pie crust have burnt into the oven. Be pleased with yourself that you never bothered to replace the battery on the smoke detector.

See that egg whites are dark brown on top while still raw underneath. Do Not Care, explaining to yourself that one or two salmonella bacteria never killed anyone.

Eat the fucking pie. Bon Appetit!
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