Not Helping

My version of hell would be having to make pie dough, all day, every day, over and over and over and over and over and over, FOREVER. I don't know why it's such an ordeal, there are only four ingredients and no fancy heating, cooling or time changes. Flour, salt, shortening and water. What's my problem? I was making tarts yesterday, three kinds because I am that kind of overachieving weirdo, and the dough just would not cooperate. One batch was all crumbly and wouldn't hold together no matter how much water I added, the second was tough and wouldn't cut well, too gooey, too flaky, too hard, it just went on and on. I talked to my mother because she can fix any sort of edible disaster. She has a science degree in food & nutrition AND clothing & textiles - where do I get my overachieving-ness I wonder? - and her consolation is that some people just do not have a talent for certain types of cuisine. She, for example, "just can't make" baked beans from scratch. Well thanks mom, but how is that a comfort from the same woman who not only CAN make pie, any pie including mincemeat, pecan, banana cream and chocolate torte but can also whip up my wedding dress in a weekend:

She also made both my sister's wedding dresses:Who really needs baked beans from scratch, I ask you?! But pie? Pie is a basic human requirement. Second only to air. Maybe. It was not a pretty afternoon.
Jane. Pie dough. Flaming swords. Iron bars. Eternal purgatory. It's all the same thing.

This is me, pie dough deficient.