To bury or not to berry

I was invited to an Easter lunch and the host requested, as my contribution, either an apple or a berry pie.  On Saturday I went to the bakery at Publix supermarket in Wilton Manors and beheld a nice selection of pies.  However, there was only one berry pie left and it was not really ready for prime time; being moofered in various ways…it probably should not even have been offered for sale.

When I was a junior in high school we studied Macbeth in my English class.  I was pretty much clueless about Shakespeare then and hated it; both Shakespeare and my cluelessness.  Until, that is, a senior girl I liked, whose English class was studying Julius Caesar, suggested we help each other by reading the plays out loud (a recommended technique in understanding Shakespeare).  I learned Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech by heart and I remember shrieking girlishly with my friend when I made farce of the second line, which is:  “I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

I have waited 63 years to have an opportunity to use my aberration in public and as I stood in front of the bakery case this Saturday, staring at that messed-up berry pie, I had my opportunity:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen; I have come to seize your berry, not to praise it.”

But, alas, I couldn’t do that to the poor overworked clerk who was looking at me expectantly.  “May I help you with something,” she said; kindness oozing from her every pore.

“I’ll take the Dutch apple,” I said.