The Cake Incident

I don’t usually blog about work, but something happened the other day that I said would make a good blog post. You be the judge.

A nice lady that works in the same vicinity I work in (it’s a BIG factory) makes cakes sometimes, usually for people’s birthdays. Monday she made a red velvet cake with white frosting in honor of some people that were leaving her section.

There was some discussion as to what made the cake red, one pundit maintaining that it was actual red velvet.

“Yes,” I said, “and now Joanie doesn’t have a dress to wear to holiday parties.”

As she was cutting it, I told her not to cut me a piece.

“Oh, I wasn’t going to,” she said.

Now, we work in the same area and use the same break room, but we actually work in different departments and have different bosses, so I thought I had said something quite tactless. I must have had quite the look on my face, because the whole table cracked up laughing. Joan assured me she had just been kidding; I was welcome to some cake. I’m a few pounds up from the holidays, so I resisted the temptation.

There was still cake left at the afternoon break.

“Do you suppose there are more calories in a small piece of cake than in a chewy fiber bar?” I asked, a chewy fiber bar being my designated snack. Several people expressed the opinion that the chewy fiber bar probably had more calories, although I suspect they were being nice because they knew I wanted the cake.

“You should have the cake,” one fellow said. “You could die on the way home, and then you’ll wish you’d had the cake.”

“If I die on the way home,” I said, “I probably won’t be thinking about the cake; I’ll be thinking, ‘Dammit, I don’t want to die, I want to live!'”

He shook his head. “You’ll be looking at that tractor trailer coming towards you and you’ll say, ‘Why didn’t I have that cake?'”

I cut myself a small piece.

After a few minutes, I pointed out that the chewy fiber bar would have had the advantage of lasting longer. My co-workers helpfully pointed out the last piece of cake, repeating the advice about maybe I would die before morning.

I admit it, I ate the cake. It was yummy. Much yummier than the chewy fiber bar, which I ate the next day. Yes, as you have no doubt guessed, I did not die either on the way home nor during the night. I was even down a pound when I stepped on the scale the next morning. Let’s hear it for cake!