What Would Squanto Do?

I was pretty cavalier in my post about the global climate change leading to the end of the world as we know it. Today I read of a shocking and sobering development that has brought the extent of the destruction into focus and chilled me to my soul.

“Heavy rains in Midwest lead to pumpkin shortage”. "Our calculations indicate that we may deplete our inventory of canned Libby's pumpkin as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday” which means NO PUMPKIN PIE!

Some people won’t care. They’ll just put an apple pie on the Thanksgiving table and expect everyone to be thrilled with the novelty of it all. Yes, there are people who tire of the familiar and are bored with the same foods appearing on the table every Thanksgiving. I imagine these same people tire of the sun coming up every morning. “Oh, yawn. I awake again, breathing and alive, day after day. I wish it were not always so.”

My wife’s own mother once wanted to shake things up a little one year and not have sweet potato casserole. Did she not understand why they call it “tradition”? Did she learn nothing from “Fiddler on the roof?” No sweet potato casserole? My wife fainted, I shouted, my daughter cried. We all went to counseling and when the therapist suggested maybe we shouldn’t visit them anymore, my mother-in-law relented. Had it been pumpkin pie that was in question, I would never have forgiven her.

There were warning signs of disaster in the news. There is a weather related shortage of Eggo waffles. Upon learning of that I should have turned off the mulching mower and manually raked the leaves. I should have started biking to work and eating locally grown foods, like, say, goetta.

Now it is too late. I wish I had heeded this poem

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for my pie — and I killed the bastards.