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The Trials and Tribulations of Cake

It all started out innocently enough. I was sitting at home taking care of some mundane task or another, when my mom asked me to pick up a birthday cake. My mom was throwing one of her renowned birthday parties for one of the day care kids, and every other adult in the house was tied up. So in the logical next step, my mom asked me to go pick it up. All I had to do was pick it up and get it back home.

I agreed readily enough, since it seemed like a simple enough task. The cake was probably something like a mile away, so it was a short enough drive to the store. It had already been paid for, and I literally just had to walk in, carry it out, and then drive back home.

However, my mom did caution me that if there was a line or I was otherwise delayed at the store, I shouldn't enter the house through the front door. Little kids tend to be experts at spotting and picking out cake, so the idea was to keep it out of sight until it was time for the cake to actually be eaten. This seemed like a decent enough plan, so I nodded and walked out of the house.

Of course, this got me thinking (that's never a good thing). I already knew on some level that the cake was an important part of the birthday party for a little kid, but the extra reminder to avoid being seen drove the point home just a little bit. Suddenly, I felt like I had an added weight on my shoulders. I wasn't just picking up a cake, I was picking up the cake. I was now responsible for the main attraction, and I personally knew something like a half-dozen two, three, and four year old kids that would be sorely disappointed if I failed to come through. I don't care if they're something like a foot tall, you never want to be responsible for letting that many people down. Hell, that goes double when they are a foot tall. It's not like they can just jump in their cars and go get some more cake if they feel like it.

So, at this point, I had these thoughts going through my head. Suddenly, I was concerned about where I would put the cake on the drive home. The trunk had other heavy-ish items that could shift and smash something as flimsy as a cake, and the front seat had a slight decline to it. The back seat seemed less ideal because it had more degrees of freedom, and I didn't particularly want to leave it out of my sight. Mind you, this was all on the drive to the store, long before I actually had the cake in my possession. That should give you some idea of my mindset at this point.

Picking up the cake was very uneventful, but the cake was wide/unwieldy enough that I had to carry it with both hands. Have you ever pictured yourself slipping, falling, and smashing a cake? I have. Incidentally, I have also walked very, very meticulously to my car while holding a cake in my hands. I also remember thinking that every parent I've ever come across has probably been through some version of this before; that whole raising a kid thing is tough, apparently.

Regardless, I settled on putting the cake in the front seat, and driving very carefully. I did NOT want the cake to slide in any direction, which meant that I had to drive as smoothly as possible. It wasn't quite as scary as the two mile drive with two twins in the back seat, but it was also closer to that drive than any other time I've driven home from the store. It was not lost on me that this particular worrisome drive was also kid-related, and I couldn't help but laugh at myself even as I worried about the structural integrity of the cake.

Luckily, there were no cake-smashing brake-slamming drivers out on the roads at the time, so I managed to get the cake home in one piece (literally). I ducked into the house and put the cake away without any kids noticing, so the entire mission was a success. That said, the sheer amount of mental anguish involved was surprisingly high, and I was oh-so-very-glad to be home with a cake safely put away.

You want to know the best part? By the time cake was served, I was so busy worrying about handing out plates and slapping spoons on top of plates that I couldn't even take pride in the fruits of my labor. I actually managed to forget about the whole ordeal in the heat of the moment.

Cake is no joke, man.

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