Foiled
Posted by Moose on February 20th, 2008. Filed under: Nice Things.I sat in a small room. French doors opened onto the yard and a wall full of clocks ticked softly – frogs and flowers and cats with swinging pendulum tails and rolling eyes. Guests circled around but never entered, so it was peaceful – if you don’t mind gimlet glares from plastic animals.
But the good stuff was in the next room, so I left the clocks and wandered in. Tables groaned under the weight of glass bowls of punch, shrimp and smoked salmon, fudge cookies and tiny lemon tarts. The birthday cake was perfect, a round confection of chocolate frosting, lavender crystals, and candles a foot high.
Hordes of guests watched as he blew out the candles and picked up a knife to cut the first slice. But the knife wouldn’t cut through more than an inch, sticking in the strangely dense chocolate. He shoved it harder. The cake crackled, but the knife wouldn’t budge. He lifted the knife and the entire cake came with it.
He was expecting birthday cake. He got frosted styrofoam.
(True story. Swear on the flying spaghetti monster. Apparently, his wife spent so much time on the other food that she didn’t have time to bake a cake. So she found some styrofoam in the garage and frosted it.)
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February 20th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Have you been dropping acid again?
February 20th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Ya know? That’s a pretty damn smarty-pants thing to do. Next time I have people over for dinner and I’m at “crunch time” I’m just going to start frosting things that I have in the garage. Ya know, to fill up the table.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Oh! I just noticed your “On the Bedside Table”—I LOVE that book. Actually, all-things-Gorey. My husband’s a graphic designer and I’m trying to get him to Gorey-Up my blog for me. I’ll shoot you an e-mail when it’s done. Say, 2015?
February 20th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
But was there pie?
February 20th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Ooh! ooh! I have the Amphigorey. It makes me bizarrely happy.
And the cake thing…that’s just mean.
I have poison oak.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I would be cheesed if my cake was Styrofoam. Or maybe not.
I am all about the icing. The cake is just a means to get the icing into your mouth.
Why waste time with the cake? Maybe she was onto something.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:09 am
NBB: Always. ALWAYS.
The Over-Thinker: I adore Edward Gorey. If your blog gets Goreyed up, I will be insanely jealous. I will visit your blog 5 times a day and whimper softly.
Kerrianne: I bet there was a pie, hidden under the tarts and salmon and spinach dip. I would not be at all surprised.
Angella: My cakes tend to be a tub of Betty Crocker frosting and a spoon.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am
If this happened to me, you bet your ass I would have picked up that “cake” and licked that styrofoam clean. No frosting goes to waste on MY BIRTHDAY, that’s for sure.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
(LOL at Kerrianne’s response!)
I can’t believe his wife let him get as far as attempting to cut the fake cake.
I’m with Angella and Emily. As a confirmed chocoholic, I strongly feel that there would have been no need to “keep up appearances.”
With chocolate frosting around, no need for stryofoam or any faux base, either, just a SPOON.
Aw, tohellwithit. If it was my birthday, just my fingers.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Are you all high? There was supposed to be cake and yet there was no actual cake! I’d be pissed because OMFG I WANT SOME DAMN CAKE!
I take my cake very, very seriously. That is all.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Perhaps the tarts weren’t really tarts and the salmon not really salmon?
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
In response to cake lovers (of which I am one): The poor man looked like he was about to cry. One had to feel for him. Before one stuck one’s finger in the icing. I think one guest – after people had mostly wandered off – picked up the styrofoam and licked it.