This evening my friend Lilleeee left for parts not unknown but rather well known which is a really cracked out way of saying she took herself on a vacation to a land filled with palm trees and ship boys who bring you drinks when you manage to lift your heavy drunken hand in the air and half-heartedly snap, followed by a lazy point at your empty pina colada glass. I'm sure the ship boys have an actual name because it seems kind of degrading to call them Ship Boys and all but really, what kind of name could you apply to them that would fully encompass the full breadth of their job duties? Because they are much more than a waiter but a bit less than a butler. A smidgeon like an escort but not so much like a hooker, unless you tip them a c-note and tell them you think you've got a leak in your stateroom and could they pretty please come check it out.
Before she left she gave me her key and a bag of cat food for the Kikimonster, with whom I will be bonding over the next week. The Kikster and I have bonded before but not on such daily basis. As far as she was concerned I was just that crazy lady who came over and chased her down the hallway because I knew she secretly wanted to cuddle on my lap. Plus she doesn't have claws and I think that tips the scales in my favor, as far as forcing her to sit on my lap for some soothing ear rubs and back scratches.
I don't know why I like other people's cats so much more than my own. Probably because as I sit here typing this, Llama has managed to shove his front paws inside my $200 shoes, his fat furry body covering the rest of the arch and heel and I can't help but wonder how this is comfortable because he's got a hard leather shoe shoved into his soft underbelly. Plus it always leaves a smattering of cat leftovers, like fur and fur and oh yeah, more fur in the depths of the shoes and if I don't shake them out in the morning then I end up with long gray strands of fur between my toes. Not cool.
As Lilleee was giving me plant watering instructions and cat feeding instructions and the obligatory Southern Monologue of Help yourself to anything in the kitchen, sugar! she mentioned that her boyfriend had made her a cake for her birthday yesterday and she'd only managed to lick a bit of the icing off the side before she had to leave for work this morning and would I be so kind as to eat some of it and then throw the rest of it away before she gets home?
You want to know if I'll help you out by eating some chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting? Hell no! I won't do it, I tell you! Okay, well, since you asked so nicely...
So I went upstairs this evening to feed Kikimonkey and I stared non-stop at the foil wrapped pan sitting silently on top of the stove as I poured dry nuggets into her bowl. I noticed the wee little light above that shimmering aluminum perfection, shining down as if the gods themselves decreed that I should eat this cake, this very one, and I should love it.
As I peeled back the foil the chocolate scent escaped and attacked my salivary glands, forcing them into overdrive. I grabbed a plate and a fork and stared down at my lot in life, my favor for a friend, and I had no idea where to begin. No, seriously. I've never had a whole cake to myself. Yes, I could have taken it into work tomorrow. I could have divided up chunks for my friends. But the prospect of being able to pick any piece within the confines of that pan was almost too much of a decision for me to make and I knew I just couldn't bear to share such perfect, untouched choclate perfection.
At first I cut a wee piece from the corner but after a bite I deemed it a bit too dry and scraped off the cake part, leaving the yummy choclate icing on the side of my plate. Then I decided I didn't have to adhere to cake cutting convention, I could have the moist middle piece and I didn't have to justify my actions or make amends for digging into the center of the cake-i-ness. In fact, I decided, I could even just dip my fork in the middle for a pre-cut taste test, just to see if my suspicions of moistness were correct. They were! Praise the Cake Gods!
And then, because I'd already mauled the center of the cake, I decided that I needed a bit more icing and that I could scrape off whatever I wanted, all in the quest for the Perfect Piece of Cake. I was justified, I thought. I don't have to share any of this with anybody else and the person eating the cake (me) certainly doesn't mind sacrificing the pristine exterior.
I must say- eating cake this way yields only, like, four pieces while if I'd left it alone I'd probably been able to divide it into sixteen. But I don't know of anyone who needs sixteen pieces of cake, much less me, so besides eating the cake for my friend I am doing a favor to myself by not eating the whole thing (hooray!), because parts will be discarded for being too crumbly or too dry or lacking in icing goodness.
Plus, I have cake and you don't. So there.
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4 comments:
dammit. if only i liked cake i'd be soooo jealous right now. you've nearly converted me. i'm going to do that with a really good old runny camembert now. so there.
no, but i am seriously considering it for a past-midnight snack. Mi estomaga tiene muy hambre, yo.
i had a girlfriend that made my roommates and i a cake. so when i took it home, i scraped all the frosting off and ate it. then stuck the unfrosted cake in the fridge. it stayed there for a while when the roomies would look and see an unfrosted pastry, and decide it not worthy. the girl got upset thinking her baking was bad. then i filled her in on what i did. she made them one behind my back. but those dolts put it in the fridge. so i scraped all the frosting off and then wrote (with a fork) "you dolts!" in the cake. i like frosting.
Plus it always leaves a smattering of cat leftovers, like fur and fur and oh yeah, more fur in the depths of the ($200) shoes and if I don't shake them out in the morning then I end up with long gray strands of fur between my toes.
At the risk of sounding like a stupid boy, I gotta say this: No matter how much you shake out the cat hair or remove gray strands of fur from your $200 shoes, the fact remains that they're shoes that cost you $200.
Baby...get an iPod or something. Cats probably don't like to cuddle with those.
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