Ugly Cake

So, several years ago, I’m dating this guy and I fall in love.  It is unclear whether he has fallen with me.  At a certain point he just falls off the planet.  We were long distance at the time and I remember hitting one of those relationship walls that don’t hurt so much as simply stun.

I cannot stay in this if he doesn’t love me back.  Equally.

Otherwise, I’m just dumb, and my friends are having intense conversations over turkey wraps that include phrases like:  “a little worried about her” and “should I say something?”

So, I tell him about the wall –in more (or less?) poetic terms- preparing myself that he will stammer and back out of the whole thing.  But, by gosh, he starts fighting to stay in! 

However,

He wants to stay in without saying “I love you.”

I think if you are 17, you get a pass on the L word, but not when you’re 40. 
Sorry.  Not in my life.

We discussed the matter over the phone until it became a full-fledged fight.  Fight.  Over “I love you.”  Idiotic.

But we two idiots pull through this one.

About a month later, right before my birthday, he really falls off the planet, disappears, stops returning calls, and so I break up with him via email.  (I do not regret the e-mail break-up.  If he cannot be bothered to pick up the phone, e-mail break up is just what he gets.)  Break-ups frequently happen around special events, as if the pressure of something special is too much to live up to and so some people just bail.  Fuck it, I thought, I’m not letting this one get me down.  I am going to celebrate.  I am going to celebrate my birthday.  Above all, I am going to celebrate that I was less idiotic.  I am alone, yes, but I’d rather be alone by myself than alone in a relationship.  I buy a new skirt, invite a couple dozen friends to join me in trespassing up to my apartment building’s rooftop, I make a cake. 

It is not unusual for me to spend hours of creative energy mentally constructing something for a party.  Lanterns.  Hand-made garlands.  I can only imagine how the non-idiots use their allotment of such brain power:  solutions to mathematic equations, cures for disease, how to decline a party invitation from a slightly neurotic friend…

After a week of cake-fixation, I hit another wall.  It sounds like this:

“No one cares about your fucking cake.”

I realized that I was so upset about the break-up that I had channeled all my emotions toward this cake.  Remembering how liberating it was to leave the relationship, I decide:  “I shall leave the cake.”  Now, readers, allow me to specify; of course we will have cake, but it won’t be in the shape of a ladybug or be decorated with candied violets.  It will be break-up cake.  And while I liked very much the sound of “break-up cake” I didn’t really want those words permeating my awesome rooftop bachelorette birthday party.  And such was the conception of Ugly Cake.  Ugly Cake was a huge hit and I highly recommend it for your next negative special occasion:  break-up, betrayal or termination-of-employment are some common examples.

Ingredients:

Cake-mix, eggs, oil, water

Frosting of choice (chocolate’s good)

Marshmallow cream

Pretzels, potato chips, something salty

Maybe a crunchy cereal

Oreos.  (Crushed with a mallet.  Or hammer.  Or framed photo of your Ex.)

Fritos.  It doesn’t matter.  Whatever you’ve got.

Instructions:

Bake cake according to directions.  Let it cool then frost it like you are murdering something.  Slash its fucking face.  It will not be pretty.  That’s the point.  Cut the fucker up into 30 or 40 cubes.

You’ll need a big bowl.  Start layering. 

Frosted cake-cubes

Marshmallow spread. 

Crunchy things. (They might not be crunchy by the time the ugly cake is consumed, but that’s the spirit.  One guest asked of my mini pretzel sticks:  “What are the wormy things?”

Repeat layering until the bowl is full.

You can stick long candles in it if you want.  It’s a good idea because without them, during the song, you’re just spitting on a cake that other people will be eating.

That was 5 years ago.  This year, as my June birthday neared, my loving husband (who says ‘I love you’ every day) fought me to handle the birthday cake.  I agreed (sacrificing all that creative force) and described what I wanted:  a white cake, white frosting, with strawberries.  I ask him about the cake more than three times in the days leading up to my birthday and my cake-fixation becomes “a thing” at our home.  For him, it’s an “are-you-kidding-me” thing; for me, a “these-kinds-of-orders-have-to-be-placed-in-advance” thing. 

On the day, he goes to pick up my cake at the somewhat famous bakery in our neighborhood.  The cake has split across the top and a good third of its top layer is sliding off to one side.

Not pretty.  And also…

Not the point this time.

He argues it out a little and the manager sees to it that a second cake is created for him.  He carefully walks it one block home and together we lift the white cardboard lid:  layers of cake, custard, and frosting are sloping off to one side.  A crevice has formed across the top that cannot be disguised.

I could not help seeing the echo of the 5-years-ago Break-up Cake, and while I was mildly bummed/amused, my husband was furious.  Eventually, we fashioned ¾ of it onto our cake stand and the other doomed ¼ went into a Tupperware bowl which we invisibly labeled “breakfast.”

I never told my husband about Ugly Cake partly because it didn’t seem like a good parallel at the moment.  But he will probably read this blog and recognize himself in both chapters of this story.  Bottom line:  cake is delicious, no matter what the shape.  But “I love you” is “I love you” only one way.