A coworker is celebrating his induction into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. To celebrate, I showed up at work this morning with some frozen custard. Loyal Scaiaholics know I have an in with the Metroplex’ leading frozen custard guy.

My newsroom enjoyed my performance in this year’s hot dog eating contest, especially the part where I stumbled back into the newsroom with a tub of that month’s special flavor [Parker County Peach]. I believe this is the only time someone other than myself has tweeted with the hashtag, “AlanScaiaMediaHero.” But it’s not too late to get that trending, gang. I may use that hashtag when I tweet this blog later today.

I wandered up to the custardologist at the front window of Curly’s. I inquired about the flavor of the month for November. The custardian said this month’s flavor was Pumpkin Pie.

I ordered a vat of chocolate for the uninitiated and another tankard of pumpkin pie.

I did not try the pumpkin pie… at first [“You’re the one who’s uninitiated,” your are now hollerin’ at yer computer screen. “You’re the one!”].

Everyone was raving about this pumpkin pie situation, how it really tastes like pumpkin!

“But everybody serves pumpkin spice stuff in the fall,” I explained. I went on to say that I went on a bit of a pumpkin spice bender at the last place a few years back. I was filling in on the morning shift and stopped at a 7-Eleven one morning [Starbucks isn’t better than me; it’s worse]. They had “Pumpkin Spice Latte” coming out of a spigot, so I gave it a try. I was smitten. I didn’t get sick of it for a whole week!

It turns out, my coworkers would explain, that “pumpkin spice” doesn’t actually taste like pumpkins. Pumpkin spice tastes like pumpkin pie.

“So what you’re telling me is pumpkin pie also doesn’t taste like a pumpkin?” I inquired.

“Right, they put all those spices in there to give it more flavor.”

My mind was blown. I could see using the “mind blown” emoji in a case like this, but I’m not One of Those Kids Today. I write sentences using words, and I am not ashamed. How would you even diagram an emoji? I’m not an old man for taking the time to diagram, “Mind blown.”

I would ultimately help myself to a coffee filter full of pumpkin pie frozen custard.

“Oh, so that’s what a pumpkin tastes like,” I would explain to my coworkers, shooting bits of custard out of my mouth as I spoke because I started talking with my mouth full. “Not, like, paprika or whatever that other stuff is.”

“Alan,” I was told. “When you moved here and started eating chicken fried steak, you didn’t expect it to taste like chicken, did you?”

Now, my coworkers were explaining this pumpkin spice situation in a way I could understand.

“Right, it’s just a steak fried in the style of chicken!”

Five years after that pumpkin spice latte incident, I’ve finally gotten to the bottom of this: pumpkin spice doesn’t actually taste like pumpkins. It’s just coffee fried in the style of a pumpkin [See what I did there?].

Now to investigate what, exactly, is a “Posh Spice.”