She was not appeased, and continued complaining about store-bought not being as good, refused to eat a cookie (which everyone agreed were excellent), and sulked the rest of the night.
So now, in her honor, every year we have Spite Pie and rejoice that she is not around to complain.

My dad gets out the phone book and starts calling grocery stores, finally finding one that's open Christmas Eve and has pumpkin pie. Goes out to get Hilda her damn pie.

Hilda was not having it. She sulked. Pouted. Complained. Behaved like a toddler (if any one of us had acted in such a way at her dinner table you better bet we'd be regretting it to this day).
Again, it's the mid-80s. There is no Walmart, no 24-hour market.

Also - she said "I'm saving room for the pumpkin pie" in this weird sing-song cadence. We have to do our best impression of it every year as part of enjoying our Spite Pie.
So. My mom calmly says we're having cookies, the kids worked really hard on making special ones.

Now, we had been talking about these cookies that we were excited about. There was no evidence of pie in the house. I *think* my parents had told everyone in advance that we were having the cookies for dessert.
Hilda did not care.

It's the mid-1980s. We have a pretty good dinner all set, and we'd worked especially hard on cookies for dessert - decorating sugar cookies was one of the few things I could manage without injury.
Midway through dinner Hilda declares she is done because "I'm saving room for the pumpkin pie!"

Every year at Christmas we have pumpkin pie - officially known as Spite Pie. My dad's step-mother was Horrible. Just a mean lady, none of us liked her. I'm gonna call her Hilda.
Anyway.
It was our year to host family Christmas Eve dinner with dad's extended fam.

Bloomberg: "If that vote succeeds, the Senate will need the consent of all members to end the shutdown quickly. Any one senator can force days of delay and votes."

Any one senator. Will that be you, Sen. Wyden?