“Then at least I’d have something to blog about.”

Those were my penultimate words in the cell phone conversation I had with my wife moments before I got out of my car with the birthday cake she had finely crafted for a fellow lab member.

The cake was a culinary sensation. It was bi-layered and chocolate, stuffed with a vanilla-pudding-based banana cream filling, topped with delectable icing, and drizzled with chocolate fudge. A sight to behold, painstakingly assembled with meticulous attention to every last excruciating detail.

The night before, she had spent literally hours preparing and putting the finishing touches on the dessert. Opting against a standard Tupperware-style container for cake transport, she carefully packaged it within an optimally sized special cake box to prevent accidental contact with container edges, preserving detail along the confection’s perimeter.

I typically park about half mile from the lab. “Couldn’t you park any closer?” she had asked, fearing the distance was too great a span she could expect me to traverse without incident.

“Not unless I pay ten dollars. Relax, I’ll be careful.”

As I turned into the parking lot this morning, cake in tow, my cell phone rang. It was her. She wished to remind to me exercise extreme caution when transporting the precious cargo from door to door.

“Be careful,” she repeated. “You never know when a little mouse will trip you up and send you to the ground.”

“Ha,” I laughed, insulted by her doubt in my agility and coordination. I then uttered the dooming words at the title of this post and bid her goodbye.

Amused and slightly irked by her skepticism, I carefully gathered my belongings and the chocolate delight. Through the parking lot, down the steps of the garage, around the corner, I walked, gingerly, even daintily, watchful for curbs, mice, and distractions of all varieties. “Left, right, left, right,” I uttered to myself, concentrating alternately on the forward motions of each foot.

I must have been thinking about the wrong foot, or maybe it was a tiny mouse that scurried around my feet outside of my peripheral vision, because all of a sudden, I know not how it began, but I was falling— no, hurtling— forward. The pavement-aimed descent seemed to occur in slow motion. One thing was certain, though: I was not going to release my grip on the cake box. I began to lift the box (lovingly marked “this side up” to preempt careless transport or placement) over my head to prevent it from crashing to ground in front of me when—crunch—an intense pain exploded in my ankle. The rest of the plunge occurred in shaky-cam fast-forward as my limbs flailed uncontrollably and the box burst forth from my hands. It must have experienced about 2 seconds of weightless air-time before it crashed and rolled.

Before the falling object that was my person came to its final rest, my body parts strewn unnaturally in three dimensions, I realized what had was now happening: I had ruined the cake and fulfilled my own prophecy—I now had something to blog about.



For those interested in the rest of the story:

* My lab mates still happily devoured the dessert formerly known as chocolate cake. Fortunately, my ever-creative spouse, in unaccounted-for prescience, had separately packaged little signs that said: “Happy Birthday!” attached to popsicle sticks. Before serving the cakeslop, I neatly inserted them into the pudding/cake/banana amalgam.

* My ankle is sprained. I could place little weight on it after I fell. Tonight, it can bear almost none.

* Both my wife and the birthday girl forgive my misstep. Pretty hard to hold a grudge against a hobbling mess such as myself. (My wife insists: “Give us more credit. Even if you hadn’t hurt yourself, we wouldn’t have been mad.” She pauses. “Although, hurting yourself doesn’t hurt your cause.”)

Top 10 reasons I don’t eat vegetables

10. When I misbehaved as a child, my parents would hang me by my toenails over a boiling vat of pea soup.

9. Gourds are people, too (or are they?).

8. I have a recurring dream where I am being interrogated by a giant water-boarding cucumber.

7. Have you seen the way they treat those veggies in the patch…? the close quarters, living in their own filth, etc. Come on, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Asparagus).

6. Saving room for desert.

5. My dad told me eating my broccoli would put hair on my chest.

4. El nino.

3. I have long suspected a connection between greens and al Qaida.

2. I have a genetic condition predisposing me to ultrasensitivity to the bitter taste associated with most vegetables.

1. The school bully used to pelt me with brussel sprouts at recess.

Not for consumption

Today, Lisa made two deserts: a strawberry pie for our own consumption and a strawberry jello pretzel salad for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday.

Also, today, I went grocery shopping and returned home with a panoply of edibles (as is not uncommon for a shopper such as myself--see blog for November 30, 2006).

So the stage is set: a refrigerator filled to near overflowing with recent purchases and culinary creations. On the top shelf, among countless other items, are the strawberry pie (for our own consumption), milk, and salad dressing. The strawberry jello pretzel salad (for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday) can be found in the bottom shelf milieu of goods.

After dinner (a delicous shrimp fra diavolo, also prepared by Lisa), Lisa was kind enough to serve us both some desert: we each had a slice of strawberry pie (which had, of course, been created for the express purpose of our own consumption). Topped with a dollop of fat-free Cool Whip, it was an utterly delectable desert, so delightful, in fact, that I decided upon seconds. "No, honey," I said. "I'll get it myself." (Foreshadowing: I have since come to regret these words.)

I gracefully emerged from my recliner, approached the refrigerator wtih aplomp, opened the door, reached for the pie, and, in a rare spasm of dyskinesia, jostled the salad dressing while my hand was en route to the strawberry pie (created for own consumption).

The dressing wobbled, forward, then back. And, then, it took the fateful swivel and tilted sideways. The bottle moved in slow motion, yet it all happened to so fast. Before I could correct my error, the thousand islands teetered off the edge of the top shelf and plummeted. The plummeting ended with a muffled plop. Before the visual stimulus before me could traverse my optic chiasm, I knew what I had done. I had caused the dressing to fall from its perch next to the strawberry pie (which was for own consumption) into (not next to or in front of, but smack dab into the middle of) the strawberry jello pretzel salad (prepared for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday).

The strawberry jello pretzel salad (which had been intended for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday) could no longer be served to her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday... and, disfigured (but still delicious) is now for our own consumption.

Lisa has graciously forgiven me. I feel just awful.

I'm going to get some more.



Originally Posted: Tuesday, May 19, 2007
(Then) Curent Mood: full
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