We've established I'm a cow, right? Just checkin'.
So I pseudo-strategically left a beloved co-worker's buh-bye party right after the affectionate applause but just before they started jack-o-lantering the big ol' sheet cake with the Tulsa World banner on it and cute little headline written in frosting. I thought it best to avoid a situation involving frosting, what with only SIX MONTHS AND ONE DAY left until I'm supposed to run 26 miles at the Route 66 Marathon.
Giving it a good 30 minutes for things to settle down before I visited the canteen for my afternoon dose of irony via Diet Coke, I passed by the newly cleared conference room where the cake had been and saw nary a trace of frosting. Fabulous! Temptation avoided. But my good buddy 007 came at me in the hall, and I -- without any reason or idea why -- asked, "Did you have any cake?"
"Yeah," she replied. "It's in the canteen." Gulp. Holy Ke$ha, that's where the dang irony dispensary is! Whatever, I (open facetious bunny-ear air quotes) needed (close air quotes) a Diet Coke.
Of course, the remains of the sheet cake were drawn and quartered on a canteen table, which I sashayed around (again, of course) humming "Your Love Is My Drug" because, sorry, it's my favorite song of the week for some weird reason. Anyway, I put my coins in, slapped the right button on the machine, BAM! got my Diet Coke and eyed the doorway -- no one was coming in. And no one, praise Betty Crocker, was in the canteen with me. I was, with the exception of Ke$ha, uh-LOAN.
First, let me confess that I've attempted sneaking pieces of leftover buh-bye cake over the last 10-plus years at the World and, each time, been caught, usually as my index AND middle fingers are gliding around the sides of the cardboard cake plate where all the icing is stupidly abandoned. What Nazi doesn't eat icing? Slim ones, perhaps.
Whatever, the memory of past red-handedness didn't deter me from reaching my left hand to pick up a hefty petit-four-like piece of cake. "Just gonna nibble at it for a few minutes, no biggie," I thought, verbatim. Uh-huh.
That's when I heard what I thought were footsteps. Without thinking (surprise), I shoved the entire piece into my mouth and closed my lips to hide the evidence. Just in case a sighted person entered and noticed the rather obvious bulge in my face, I quickly turned to the sink so I could chew. And, apparently, inhale sharply. Lovely, this is TOTALLY how I go, isn't it -- death by chocolate cake. At work, no less.
After a few panicky seconds, someone actually does enter the canteen this time, as the earlier footsteps were probably just my conscience. Anyway, it was a fellow workmate fetching a piece of cake, too -- except he had, if you'll pardon my confectionery terminology, the cake balls to admit it. I really need therapy.
So, after confessing to him my near-death experience via baked goods, I crept back to my desk, popped open some irony while I pecked away at the keyboard. The end. Moo.
Need a moral to the story? Not sure there is one except, maybe, "When sneaking large bites of cake, be sure to inhale through your nose."
Peace, love and cakeballs ... XOXO
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