The Mega Cake in the Bushes

Newsletter 2024-05-23

It’s been a while since I pulled off a good scheme. In recent months, the people in my life have been tragically safe from mountain lions in hoodies, unexplained bedroom bananas, and well-dressed wedding bears. It was with much delight, then, that I found myself skulking around in the dark outside my father-in-law’s house earlier this week. Like all great ideas, this one was inspired by jello shots and Star Wars. This time, I even had a confederate with me. Carefully, my brother-in-law Jerry and I moved through the night, trying desperately to avoid detection. If we pulled it off, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime birthday surprise for someone who truly deserved it. And if we didn’t, well, I’m sure we could explain to a cop why we were trespassing with a hammer. There was absolutely no way this plan could backfire. Welcome to Bob’s birthday. 

Everyone in the family owes my wife’s father countless favors. He rescued my kids when Lola unexpectedly found herself trapped in a parking lot and in charge of someone else’s birthday party last Saturday. He redid my porch, installed my last dishwasher, and custom built new countertops in my kitchen. He helped Jerry build a closet under his stairs and renovated half of Lola’s brother’s house. Now that Bob is retired, he’s a roaming handyman, wandering the earth doing free projects for those who truly deserve it—and also for a few worthless individuals who simply married into the family. I know what I am. We could never adequately repay him for all he’s done for us, but we could give him a memorable birthday. That’s a dangerous qualifier. “Memorable” isn’t a synonym for “good.” I had a feeling I knew which way this one was going to go after that last jello shot. As always, the vodka was right. 

Our biggest hurdle to giving Bob a good birthday was that someone already set the bar too high. Various family members put together a surprise party for Bob’s sixtieth birthday. My mother-in-law Donna (I had to change her fake name because I accidentally used it for two different people) kept him distracted and out of the house all morning while the out-of-state guests showed up. When he got home, he was greeted by his parents, brothers, kids, and grandkids. Bob had to blink back tears. It was one of the best days of his life. He’s been talking about it ever since, which really highlights all the surprise parties we didn’t throw for him after that. In our defense, lots of people drop the ball twelve years in a row.

On Star Wars Day, my usual crew of friends and family members was talking over an Episode II lightsaber battle when our attention turned to the upcoming birthday season. Half of that side of the family has their special day over the next few weeks. Inspired by the level of kindness only alcohol-infused gelatin can bring, we decided it was time to do something nice for Bob again. Once every dozen years sounded about right. We settled on a large, gaudy birthday banner we would sneak into his yard in the dead of night. Jerry and I immediately volunteered for the mission. That’s what son-in-laws are for. Before we had a chance to talk ourselves out of the idea, Lola bought giant letters on Amazon. She likes to pretend she holds me back from my hijinks, but really, she’s my greatest enabler. All that was left to do was figure out what else I would leave behind in his yard on my nighttime trip. Minivans are built for hauling maximum shenanigans. We could squeeze in so much semi-destructive fun.

Ideally, when Bob woke up on the morning of his birthday to find his yard defaced with our gesture of familial love, he’d also look down to see his front steps blighted by a massive cake. That concept posed some logistical hurdles. For starters, it’s summer. A cake wouldn’t do great sitting out all night in hot, humid weather. We wanted to celebrate the man’s life, not end it with food poisoning. Also, I can’t imagine a greater beacon to vermin of all kinds than leaving out a giant sugar bomb. Even the strongest plastic cake carrier couldn’t keep out wildlife for long. I planned on delivering a cake grand enough to attract a bear. That left a few alternatives. I could drop off the cake first thing in the morning rather than last thing the night before. That could still surprise Bob with less of a chance for bacteria or animals to intervene, but I didn’t think I could get up that early. Like most old people, Bob wakes up at hours that don’t exist. I don’t understand why my analog clock even has a four. Instead, I could simply hand Bob the cake, but that seemed like it would kill most of the fun. The part of his surprise party he liked the most was the surprise. Me standing in front of him would be the least surprising thing ever. I have a million more home improvement projects I’d like him to do for me right away. The final option was to bring Donna in on the plot so that she could sneak the cake into the house the night before. The downsides were obvious. The more people you recruit for a scheme, the more likely it is to be discovered. She could slip up and say something, or she could be spotted going outside to get the cake. What would her cover story be? She felt like going for a random stroll around the outside of the house in the dark? It’s never too late to patrol the perimeter. Still, it seemed wiser than taking a chance with salmonella or bears. Donna was caught off guard on birthday eve when I started blowing up her phone. 

All that was left to do was make a cake—or, in my case, buy it. I’m something of a savant when it comes to acquiring discount desserts. My recent scores included mini doughnuts for sixty-four cents a dozen and frosted sugar cookies at ninety-nine cents for ten. I bought sixteen packages of the latter. My only regret is that I didn’t buy more. I hoped to elevate Bob’s birthday with a similar strategy of quantity over quality. Instead of one cake, I planned to get him three—and then stack them on top of each other. The more dissimilar, the better. No individual cake could be too tall. The edible monument had to fit inside our cake carrier, but if I had to smash it a little in the final step, so be it. A cake blob tastes just as good as a cake tower, at least until the ants get to it. The bakery didn’t have any good deals that day, but they did have some wonderfully contrasting full-price cakes. For the base layer, I picked out an elegant white cake with checkerboard strawberry frosting on top. It would be the ideal support structure for a slightly smaller military camo cake on level two. For the top layer, I targeted a pink unicorn smash cake. It was the holy trinity of baked goods. Then I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. For a moment, time stood still. There was a far better option. Rather than buying Bob three unrelated cakes and combining them, I could buy him three identical ones and pile them up in the ultimate pillar of perfection. The design wasn’t random; it captured Bob’s very essence. More importantly, there were miniature versions of that same cake that I could use to ring the main structure, creating a henge worthy of the druids of old. They were delicacies so perfect and so pure that it finally made me understand the expression “have your cake and eat it, too.” To destroy such beauty through consumption would be a crime against the heavens themselves. And yet, the cakes must be cut because there were birthday memories to be made. I filled my cart with baked goods and rushed home with giddy anticipation. Behold the glorious results. The pictures speak for themselves.