PJP Was There.
For several hundred working hours last week, we worked diligently on 6,000 tarts for the VU light show. Our goal was 1,500 custom boxes of four tarts each - Dutch Apple, Peach Praline, Brown Butter Chess, and Chocolate Bourbon Pecan. And when I said we worked diligently, what I mean is we worked relentlessly, without pause, and from sun up to sun down for the better part of the week.
At any rate, we finished early on Friday. Freakishly early. We are the queens of the last minute finish and the coordinators of the chaos, so that it was all calm was SUSPICIOUS. I even said aloud to Team PJP: “Something isn’t right…what if there is an earthquake?”
Replace hurricane with tornado watch and legendary December thunderstorms and I guess you know how this story ends.
In short, we spent an hour unloading the U-Haul and not 60 seconds later, the skies opened. We were provided with one tent with no sides, so Jason, our kids, and Travis actually shielded our 6,000 pies with our bodies. At one point as we held on to the tent to keep it ripping out of the ground, I wondered if we were in an actual tornado and what I should do about my kids trying to protect our pies and thus, our hours of long work. While the storm raged on our baked goods, it actually blew out the generators for the light show displays and cut the music, making it eerily dark and quiet - minus the thunder and rain.
So then what?
In short, we lost 90% of our pie boxes to wind and rain. Typing that even now makes me sick to my stomach.
The light show for Friday night was cancelled because none of the lights worked, no music played, and no dessert was available.
My tennis shoes are still wet.
The five of us are forever bonded together in a way that comes only from surviving an epic storm…and the subsequent sickness from realizing all the work from the week was ruined.
At no point did anyone suggest we abandon the tarts for the safety of the U-Haul, which fills my heart with pride. Rather, we used our jackets, our bodies, and our sheer will to save as many boxes as possible. No pie left behind.
So, here’s what everyone wants to know: were we still paid? Yes. VU couldn’t have been more gracious about the situation. They kept what was salvageable for their staff and we returned the rest to our dumpster. (If Subway didn’t hate us before, they do now for sure.)
It’s a heartbreak for sure to watch all that hard work disappear in front of our eyes, but as the storms raged on across Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky - and probably more - people lost their homes and their businesses. So, really, tarts are nothing in comparison. At the time though…WOOF. It was a tough loss to take. And if you work at the VU campus and see strands of red tissue shred blow by, well…PJP was there on Friday, if even for a short time.
