Category: Daily

Fact: When I was a kid, my mom took my sister and I to school every morning and picked us up every afternoon.

Fact: Every year in the fall (no foreshadowing pun intended), our elementary school would hold a Family Fun Night. And that Family Fun Night included a cake walk.

Fact: My mom used to be quite a cake maker. She has been known to create wedding cakes. No joke.

One afternoon when I was nine and in the fourth grade, I ran down the hill from the elementary school to my mom’s car and found that the front seat on the passenger side was covered with towels surrounding and protecting a lovely white-iced three-layer cake. My mom told me that the cake was for Family Fun Night, and she had been waiting for me to get down to the car so we could carry it up the hill to the gymnasium.

Because nine year old kids tend to be a bit over-confident, I begged my mom to let me carry the cake up to the gym by myself.

My mom then made the worst decision of her life, which is a huge deal when you consider the fact that she once purchased and wore a blue polyester jumpsuit with red and yellow stalks of wheat painted at hip level.

“Well, okay. But be careful.”

I got out of the car and Mom reluctantly handed me the aluminum foil wrapped piece of cardboard with the three layer cake balanced on top.

I slowly took off toward the gym, concentrating on the cake with every step I took.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Right foot.

You get the idea.

So, then this happened: The barometric pressure suddenly changed and I fell down. And when I fell down, I dropped the cake. And it stayed on the cardboard platter thing, but the top two layers shifted quite a bit. I quickly looked down to my mom’s car and noticed that she was talking to another mom and hadn’t seen my fall. SO, with tiny rocks embedded in my hands, I pushed those cake layers back so they were lined up, wiped the icing from my hands onto my pants, and delivered the cake to the gym.

The mother’s club volunteer took one look at the cake, looked down at my hands and pants, and asked what happened.

Get this. I told her that my mom isn’t a very safe driver, and that the cake fell off of the seat onto the floor of the car.

“Mom says it’s fine for the cake walk.”

I then turned around and headed straight to the bathroom to clean myself up before returning to the car.

Thirty years later, payback arrived when I hurled last week’s brownies across the school parking lot and had  no one to blame for my gracelessness. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

As you know, I had to take a food item to school yesterday for teachers to snack on during the Parent/Teacher Conferences. Harper and I went to the store yesterday morning, and quickly decided on a cheese and sausage platter with crackers.

When we returned home, Harper looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, “I wanted to take brownies to the teachers because I wanted to MAKE brownies for the teachers.”

Hhhhh. Let’s make brownies.

We had less than an hour to make brownies and still get Harper and the snacks to school on time. Combine brownie mix, eggs, oil, chocolate chips, etc., spread in a greased foil throwaway pan, bake for 42 minutes, take brownies out of the oven, apply plastic lid, shove hand into oven mitt and carry brownies out to the car with the cheese, crackers, and preschooler. Done.

Know this: We bought new boots for Harper a few weeks ago. They’re pink and suede and awkward. (Awkward = Foreshadowing!) Okay. Back to our story.

When we arrived at school, I had less than five minutes to deliver the snacks to the office before delivering Harper to preschool pick-up. I parked the car, wedged the cheese and crackers into the crook of my left arm, shoved my left hand into the oven mitt and balanced the hot brownies on my left hand. (Can you tell that something wicked this way comes?) I then opened Harper’s door with my right hand, and she undid her seat belt and started to climb out of the car. As she climbed down, her boot got caught on the front seat (I *told* you they’re awkward!), and she started to stumble. When I went to steady her with my right hand, my ankle did that thing that ankles sometimes do when they suddenly give out and you lose your balance. When my ankle did that thing, I accidentally chucked the hot brownies like a frisbee across the parking lot.

Me: Shit.

Harper: You can’t say that.

Me: Yeah. Okay then. I just did.

I retrieved the brownies from across the lot (they were all cracked and bent up like they had been hit by a car (surprisingly, the plastic lid stayed on)), returned them to the passenger side of my car, and Harper and I ran in and delivered the cheese.

Super Nice Lady in the Office: Oh! Thank you so much for the cheese and crackers! This is great!

Me (in constant need of both praise and a good confession): Thanks! I just fell down and hurled brownies across the parking lot.

SNLitO (pronounced Sin LIT Oh): Are you okay?

Me (doing the thing that I do): Oh! I’m good. And the lid stayed on the brownies, and they’re the kind of brownies that have chocolate chips on top. I Fell Down!

SNLitO (aka Dumbledore, because she’s so wise and forgiving): Teachers Eat Anything.

So I went outside, tried my best to bend the brownie container back into shape—a feat not completely unlike trying to bend a Cutlass Supreme back into shape—and turned them in to SNLitO. And she complimented their smell. Because she sees the good in everything.

I could learn a lot from SNLitO.

We all could. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>