I have found a new favorite way to write this column.

I am sitting at the kitchen table. It’s a few minutes past 10 p.m. last night, and the girls are sound asleep. The good wife, Elizabeth, has yet to return home from her evening band practice at the high school.

My busy night of taking Quinette to her piano lesson, cooking dinner at the Oriental House, covering a volleyball game and getting the girls cleaned up and in bed is now behind me.

I headed to the freezer to see if by chance there was any ice cream left, and what did I find? A whole apple pie.

I have no idea how it got there, but it didn’t matter. I was going to eat it, and there was no one here to stop me. I carefully read the directions: Heat at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, and then at 350 degrees for one hour … one hour! I have to wait an entire hour to sink my teeth into this wonderful pie. Oh, the agony.

I went ahead and popped it in the oven and followed the directions, though I will admit I thought about cranking up the oven and cooking the thing on overdrive, but don’t worry, I didn’t.

So, yes, I waited more than an hour.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

After an hour, the pie was ready. I popped open the oven, and the smell was amazing.

But I had to let it cool, right?

Wrong!

After a minute, I dug right in, poured a tall glass of milk and was getting ready to take a bite when … the garage door opened.

It was the wife.

Oh, boy -- was I in trouble for cooking the pie? Where did we get the pie? Was it for a special occasion I didn’t know about? I wanted to hide it, but the smell of pie was everywhere. Plus, where can you hide a whole pie? Not under the couch or under the bed. Not in a closet or down in the basement. There are no good pie-hiding spots.

So I let it sit there on the top of the stove in all its hot pie glory for her to see.

“You cooked the pie, huh?” Elizabeth asked, putting down her bags and jacket. “What are you going to do with it now?”

“Eat some of it,” I replied.

“This late?” she asked.

“I was hungry.”

Elizabeth didn’t say much else, but she did grab a plate and cut her a small piece of pie and poured a glass of milk. And then something funny happened. We sat down together at the kitchen table and talked for the next 30 minutes. She talked about band practice, and I listened between bites of pie. I talked about what the girls did that night, and about work, and she listened.

It was the most we talked in peace and quiet since school began, and it was nice.

The pie was delicious, and the time at the kitchen table with my wife was nice. Have to run now, it’s time to wrap the pie up in tin foil and save the rest for another night.

Rick Rogers is the publisher of the Neosho Daily News. E-mail him at rrogers@neoshodailynews.com.