The Cake Was Not A Lie

(When I was a little girl, my mother worked as a cake decorator in the bakery department of a well-known — on the east coast, anyway — grocery store chain. One of her coworkers is commissioned to make a birthday cake with an ice skating scene. The result is something my mom sings praises as the most gorgeous cake she has ever seen come out of that store complete with edible glitter to make the snow sparkle. Despite the fact that everyone agrees how beautiful the cake is and the fact that the customer says nothing when she comes to pick it up, she comes back to the store angry the next day to complain about it.)

Customer: “You put glitter on my cake!”

Coworker: “It’s edible glitter. It’s perfectly safe to eat.”

Customer: “There is no such thing as edible glitter!”

Coworker: “Ma’am, there is. If you want, I can go grab some and show you.”

Customer: “I had to completely scrape the top of the cake off just so we could eat it!”

Coworker: “You… scraped it?”

(The coworker wasn’t the only person who was devastated to learn that she had defaced the cake. My mom and all of their coworkers were similarly disheartened to learn that her gorgeous cake had been destroyed rather than enjoyed as intended.)