(mostly myself. but not exclusively.)
The team received an email from our Account Executive updating us on the status of the bio of a faculty member named Thelma Hurd. (It had been approved).
Always a professional, I ‘reply all’ responded:
Thelma Hurd sounds like a Stephen King character.
Thelma Hurd was making pies.
She’d been making pies since before she was big enough to reach the countertop. She would climb up on the tall kitchen stool and her grandmother would let her press the fork, carefully, around the edges of the pie, pinching the dough into little lines.
Everyone in Waterkills , Maine , knew she made the best pies in twelve counties. And today she was making pies; cherry and lemon. And she was crying.
