The Gobblin’ Goblin
I’m at a wedding of a dear friend in the middle of nowhere, Southern Illinois. (To be fair, most of Illinois is “middle of nowhere,” but this wedding is literally in the middle of several cornfields, on a gravel road off a tarmac road.) I’m having a grand time at the reception, occasionally making conversation with folks I really don’t know, especially the father of a young boy.
This young boy could not be older than four. This kid was an absolute GOBLIN, and his dad was taking every punch — sometimes literally! He was the calmest, nicest, most patient father you could ever meet. His son was being kind of loud and rowdy, but his dad wasn’t angry. He kept telling his kid, calmly, that it wasn’t the time for applause yet. Okay, NOW it was the time for applause. It was rather adorable.
At one point, the entire table was being accused of… something… by this child. As I said, he was a little goblin.
There were miniature cupcakes served at this wedding and, of course, the kid made a beeline and grabbed a bunch of them.
I noticed he was eating them like any kid could: frosting first, then cake. At one point, his dad chuckled and grabbed the cupcake wrapper. He showed his son how to peel the cupcake wrapper away to reveal MORE CUPCAKE.
The son was awed. Slack-jawed and goggle-eyed, he called his father a magician and proceeded to eat every crumb. The kid ended up eating a couple of cupcakes in this manner: frosting first and then the visible cake, and then his father would peel the rest and the kid would scarf every last morsel.
I decided that if this kid wanted to see a REAL magician…
I grabbed my own cupcake and a butter knife.
Me: “May I enlighten your son as to the best way to eat a cupcake?”
His dad laughed and nodded. The kid stared at me, enraptured.
Me: “Okay, what you do is you peel the wrapping off first, so you get the whole cupcake, right? Then… you cut the bottom half horizontally… and you take it apart, like this, you see? And then you flip the bottom half over, and you make yourself a frosting sandwich!”
I then took a bite to show how delicious it was.
The dad was grinning, and the kid simply stared, eyes bigger than the moon, jaw on the table.
In his best goblin voice, he growl-screamed to his father:
Kid: “GET ME ANOTHER CUPCAKE!”
Father: *Laughing* “Now see what you’ve done?”
They tried it a couple of times (with varying degrees of success), and the kid was happier than a pig in muck.
I’ll probably never see that kid again, but it warmed my heart to pass on some wisdom… and to see a child go full-on GOBLIN MODE on some cupcakes.