Supermarket bakeries -- When will I learn?
My daughter is graduating, and her future in-laws are
generously throwing her a graduation party, a small and impromptu affair to
which I am bringing dessert. So I am
thinking a cake would make a good choice. I decide against the professional bakery
because I will be tempted by cannolis (sad reason, but true) and go to the
large supermarket bakery down the street from the small Italian bakery.
I find a nice sheet cake, but it's chocolate. I really wanted gold or marble, but I decide
on that cake because it has pink and purple, my daughter's favorite colors
(okay, purple is her favorite color, but work with me), and because they do not
have any gold or marble sheet cakes left in the display case. I ask the person behind the counter how much
to have something written on it.
"Free," he tells me.
I tell him what I want written on it, and he and the cake
disappear for all of four minutes. When
he comes back, there is something, not quite sure what, written across the cake
… crookedly and with uneven letters.
Dude. Fucking seriously?!
So I see this monstrosity that the cake has become, a
debacle in the making, and quietly ask, "Can you add some rosettes or
something?" Anything, anything at all to fix this disaster, this sudden Titanic of
cakes that started out so elegantly and is now deep-sixed.
"Uh … well…. Actually …. I've never written anything on
a cake before. I don't know how to do
that."
I'm thinking, "Kid, could you maybe have told me this
BEFORE you volunteered to write on the cake. I could've done a better job myself."
Fuck my life. I mean, really. Fuck my life.
So I take the cake and run … run … run to the baking aisle
of the store and buy a Happy Birthday
candy topper set and some icing. I take
the cake home and proceed to put candy balloons and decorations on the top, and
I cut out the whole "birth" part and simply attach Happy day to the cake. Then I attempt to fix what I can of Mr.
Asswipe's mistakes.
I run over to the graduation party. When it finally comes time to cut into the
chocolate cake, I apologize for the bizzaro decorating job and I apologize that
in addition to brownies and cookies, the cake is also chocolate.
As if on cue, as if taking a play directly out of the bakery
fiasco rule book, we cut into the chocolate cake and --- and --- it's a golden
cake. No chocolate. Not a morsel of chocolate. Nothing.
Nada. Kaput. The tag clearly says "Chocolate
Cake" and the counter boy clearly said all the cakes left were chocolate. WTF, dudes.
Is it truly that difficult to tell yellow from brown?
Except for the cake, which looked like shit but tasted
excellent, albeit not chocolate, it was a great party. The graduation is tomorrow. I have to be honest, I hope it's not as crazy
an experience as this cake has been. I
want to be at the right graduation at the right time at the right place with a
parking space from which I can simply drive out easily; no strange writing and
no vanilla when it's supposed to be chocolate.
If it all goes smoothly, it will be an unexpected blessing
-- and the complete opposite of the cake experience.
Congratulations on
your R.N., Daughter. Nicely done.
